The primary mechanism patents provide is the open publishing and explanation of the technologies/mechanisms/etc involved. The goal is to extract research from the depths of company archives and promote iteration on existing technologies without outright cloning them. In return, you get a guaranteed monopoly on your technology for X years, and protection from theft after your open-publishing.
This system has failed in a number of ways.
1. The rate of technological evolution was significantly slower, and a time-limited monopoly was less impactful, in previous history. The industrial revolution covers some 100 year period. The digital revolution covers about 40. Things get obsoleted much faster these days, to the point that a 20-year monopoly is literally the whole lifetime of the technology
2. Patents have been granted too easily for too little (largely because there’s no repercussion for filing, and re-filing, dumb patents) allowing for extremely broad interpretations, and a single technology incorporating hundreds of different patents (eg h265)
3. Because there’s so many of them, and they’re often so vaguely defined, I’m fairly certain almost no one actually reads them to learn how to implement something, or improve on the design. I’m also fairly certain that reading patents is a great way to “poison” yourself — if it can be shown you read the parent at some point, and then violated it, it’s a trivial lawsuit.
When we create a monopoly through regulation, we should also regulate the prices the monopoly can charge, because any market without competition is broken.
This system has failed in a number of ways.
1. The rate of technological evolution was significantly slower, and a time-limited monopoly was less impactful, in previous history. The industrial revolution covers some 100 year period. The digital revolution covers about 40. Things get obsoleted much faster these days, to the point that a 20-year monopoly is literally the whole lifetime of the technology
2. Patents have been granted too easily for too little (largely because there’s no repercussion for filing, and re-filing, dumb patents) allowing for extremely broad interpretations, and a single technology incorporating hundreds of different patents (eg h265)
3. Because there’s so many of them, and they’re often so vaguely defined, I’m fairly certain almost no one actually reads them to learn how to implement something, or improve on the design. I’m also fairly certain that reading patents is a great way to “poison” yourself — if it can be shown you read the parent at some point, and then violated it, it’s a trivial lawsuit.