Another Call For Abolishing Patents, This One From the St. Louis Fed 315
New submitter WOOFYGOOFY writes "The most recent call for curtailing patents comes not just from an unexpected source, the St. Louis Fed, but also in its most basic form: total abolition of all patents. Via the Atlantic Monthly: a new working paper (PDF) from two members of the St. Louis Federal Reserve, Michele Boldrin and David Levine, in which they argue that while a weak patent system may mildly increase innovation with limited side-effects, such a system can never be contained and will inevitably lead to a stifling patent system such as that presently found in the U.S. They argue: '...strong patent systems retard innovation with many negative side-effects. ... the political demand for stronger patent protection comes from old and stagnant industries and firms, not from new and innovative ones. Hence the best solution is to abolish patents entirely through strong constitutional measures and to find other legislative instruments, less open to lobbying and rent-seeking.' They acknowledge that some industries could suffer under a such a system. They single out pharma, and suggest other legislative measures be found to foster innovation whenever there is clear evidence that laissez-faire under-supplies it."
pharma? (Score:5, Insightful)
you're going to call out pharma as an example where the patent process provides a positive influence?
may as well defend the patenting of gene sequences. or business models.
the whole thing is corrupt
Re:War to end all wars (Score:5, Insightful)
What a shame, in your rush to get the first post, you mistook patents for copyright. Sadly, this is not the case. The industries that (ab)use patents are much, much bigger than a few pathetic media companies that don't even total up to a trillion dollars a year in profit. Removing patents would really anger manufacturing, engineering firms, software companies, and especially pharmaceutical companies. Do they influence the government more than the banks? I can't say, but they have the advantage, as they only have to convince congress to continue not changing a thing.
big obstacle (Score:1, Insightful)
Drug Patents (Score:3, Insightful)
It takes years of testing to get a drug approved by the FDA, and that costs big big money to do. You get the drug approved by the FDA and then a chemist comes and makes the exact same thing, and your years of investment into research and development and clinical trials of that drug are going to not be paid off. Somebody would essentially walk the path that you made and they would reap the same benefits just simply by copying what you have done.
there's a reason for patents (Score:2, Insightful)
Patents are supposed to be a (time-limited) barrier to competition. They're supposed to be the way the inventor gets payed for his invention. Without patents there's little incentive to develop inventions into technologies --- technologies that would be quickly copied. People who don't understand this probably would really suck as businessmen.
The present patent system is a travesty, a farce, an outrage --- not much more than a license for lawyers to steal. But the answer to a broken patent system is a fixed patent system, not no patent system.
Re:Drug Patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Patents (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I guess he read my sig (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Drug Patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from just abolishing patents, IP should be abolished in all forms for anything produced with public funds. Get rid of the contractor bug.
Re:War to end all wars (Score:1, Insightful)
If this were really a war, the Fed would win. They own the government and the economy. Literally - they can show you the paper.
But I imagine this is just an academic exercise by a couple guys, and the Fed as a whole doesn't really give a damn.
Re:pharma? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps then they should stop gaming the system, like patenting a drug for one use, then just before the patent expires, they patent it for another use. Voila, twice patent protection now, as others can't make the drug for the first use, because it might also be used for the second one. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Also, continue to ignore repeated gaming of the so-called 'testing' phase, where because the costs are so large, there is incredible pressure to ensure the results result in the drug going to market.
Re:War to end all wars (Score:4, Insightful)
Very very few new inventions are the result of anyone looking up existing patents and then extending them. Many many patents are if this sort however (find a patent and add "on the Internet" or "via mobile device").
There are a lot of smart people out there. They don't need documentation of ideas to be inspired and come up with a new iteration.
Patents offer little of value outside of a historical record (which is interesting to a few academics and random editorialists looking for a background reference).
Patents don't even really document a specific application anymore as the lawyers who write them make every effort to obfuscate the true use in many cases, while covering all of the areas of interest with examples that are typically useless.
Re:If abolishing patents won't happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
Trade secrets lead to a closed, uncooperative system where "the wheel" so to speak is constantly reinvented and the pace of techological innovation is significantly slowed.
When was the last time you looked up a patent rather than reinventing the wheel? Certainly whith software I am reinventing wheels on a daily basis, but it is easier and quicker for me to do this than find an appropriate patent and adapt it to my situation.
Most software patents document the obvious. Those things that weren't obvious when they were filed will be considered obvious by the time they are granted. Modern patents are also so badly obfuscated by the patent writers that they probably can't be used as a basis of implementation anyway.
There are some (non-software) patents that cover large portions of a whole product that I think may be beneficial uses of the patent system, but patents that cover only small components within a device are really not beneficial to society because no one is going to spend the time looking for a patent that covers what they want to do, and those who infringe almost always do so by independently inventing something without realising it was already patented.
I support the idea of having to pay an inventor in situations where their invention has saved you from the R&D expense of developing it yourself, but I don't support the notion that you should have to pay them just because you inadvertently invented the same thing as them (and haence already had the R&D expense yourself.)
The right to a patent monopoly is not fundamental (Score:5, Insightful)
The right to a patent monopoly is not a fundamental human right.
The US Constitution is written with a specific sense regarding rights. It grants no rights because it takes the point of view that you have human rights, with, or without any government's say so. Instead, the Constitution grants powers to the government.
The right to a patent monopoly is not one of the rights the Constitution assumes you have. That's because, in the eyes of the authors of that document, it's not really a basic human right. Instead, the government is explicitly empowered to grant patent and copyright monopolies. And that power is conditional: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
If it isn't functioning as intended, is it still legitimate?
Re:War to end all wars (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't have "money", they have a magic wand.
The US government has granted them the power to conjure dollars from thin air, by issuing interest-bearing loans to whoever they want at any amount they want.
The fed has little need for mundane purchasing power. They have the absolute power to conjure and distribute any loan to whoever they see fit, with no obligation to report their activity to anybody.
It is in their interest to maintain public relations, disclosing much of their activity and staying engaged with officials, financiers, and the public.
But at it's core, it's independent in every way. If you'd like to see what they've done, ask your congress people. You'll find that they don't know. So encourage them to Audit the Fed.