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If I'm understanding the question correctly, sure.
When Jonas Salk came up with the first polio vaccine - which was such a big deal that it's hard to think of anything comparable today - he didn't feel the need to latch on to it, saying "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"
It's often argued that IP and copyright laws are protectionist in nature, but would there be innovation without them?
Yes,
the reality is that IP and copyright law is mostly to protect rich people's profits
good example of this is music copyright
Who would have thought that music would have copyright, but now media owners can push a song over and over and over around the World and then collect profits from all around the World thanks to copyright.
It's often argued that IP and copyright laws are protectionist in nature, but would there be innovation without them?
Sure, but the degree of scale to which it benefits others would likely vary based on the 'innovators' philosophical mindset toward sharing/ collaboration, and current station in life (level of comfort in relation to social standing and sphere of influence). Some innovate solely for the potential monetary gain; others may have more a desire to benefit mankind and not care whether they make enormous monetary gain but rather gain fame; then others may realize that if the 'system' (business -economic) that promotes innovation and those who profit from it (financially and otherwise) are not really contributing nor have the same mindset (the innovation filtering / release mechanism toward the broad market place) decide to withdraw, ala Harry Chickpea's apt comment.
My random thoughts. A favorite quote by Robert Heinlein: "Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things"
The economic command control function used by those driving the mechanisms of control in todays systems of innovation (corporations, legislators, lobbyists, regulators etc...) may at times suppress innovation / technological advance if it doesn't continue to reinforce their hegemonic control of resources or their filtering/ guidance. (See Invention Secrecy Act of 1951)
The system tends more toward seeking to manage false 'scarcity' to maximize marginal unit profit for those who control the resources (or 'rights').
I think R Buckminster Fuller, in his book Critical Path, did a good job of describing the evolution of innovation. Especially, the description he gives of the migration of technological innovation being under the control of corporations via relationships with academic research facilities and the corp research labs. While this is, in many ways, a natural path due to scale and monetary needs as economies grow in complexity, it shows how a corporation who is guided by the aforementioned business ecnonomic model may not have an interest in truly forwarding tech advances - IF, the current state of technology remain 'cash cows' in the product / service marginal reward arena.
This reinforces the point made by SportyandMisty in comment 15 regarding IP and copyright being a 'negative right'. The ability to contain 'disruptive' technology until a revenue stream from some other innovation / current way of doing something is fully maximized.
In some 'industries', there is a disconnect in public welfare. Let's examine the sick care industry (hospitals / big pharma). For example, when treated as an 'industry' the seeking of solutions is sacrificed to revenue streams (treatment for existing conditions). Not that there is always a 'solution' per se, but it subverts "Wellness" for residual "Sick-Treatment-Care" (revenue$).
Other industries (software) have interesting dynamics that can illustrate the mindset of the innovators, like the debate between open source software innovation versus proprietary innovation and the levels of effectiveness / benefit to the end user community.
Innovation in the absence of personal reward is a fascinating topic since it highlights the motivation of individual 'innovators'.
Innovation in the absence of personal reward is a fascinating topic since it highlights the motivation of individual 'innovators'.
The gardening world is a great example of innovation without financial rewards. There are millions of hobbyists that create and share seeds and cuttings of plants they have bred without thought of patents or rewards. There's probably 1000 cultivars of figs circulating around and I can think of about 5 that are patented. The internet has allowed people to create and share like never before.
I think the best inventors are internally motivated and financial reward is a secondary consideration. Also, patents tend to limit second hand users of failed ideas. As Edison said, "Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do in the first place doesn't mean it's useless." In today's world, Edison would be bankrupted 1000 times over for taking others failed (but bought by trolls) patents and making them useful.
Some of the posters here have a tinkerer's view of invention. But there's a big difference between, for example, at the extremes, a software invention and a pharma invention.
A software invention can be -- and often is -- the trivial result of someone who gets an idea while in the shower. Total investment -- just about zero, plus whatever the cost of writing the code.
On the other hand, estimates for the cost of a new drug brought to market range from hundreds of millions of dollars to billions. How on earth would this work without patent protection?
I don't think that innovation is tied to the pursuit of riches, but I can understand why someone would want to prevent others from getting rich off of their own work without doing any of their own. But this isn't so much that the inventors are greedy-- it's that they recognize that ethically challenged people are more than willing to profit from things in which they played no part, simply because they can.
The problem is that under capitalism the reward is always more important than the innovation itself, so this sort of unethical behavior is encouraged. You're always going to have people trying to profit from others' inventions and you're always going to jealously guard your innovations from others.
You would need to fundamentally change society on a global scale, focusing more on the common good than personal gain, so that people wouldn't have any reason to exploit the inventions of others and would merely benefit from their existence along with everyone else.
This is, unfortunately, pretty much the opposite of the direction we've been headed in for the past 40-50 years.
Last edited by Spatula City; 05-28-2015 at 09:52 AM..
^ good quote. but the way the op framed the question, i still beleive that there will at least be very little innovation even if the uspto closes down.
"On the other hand, estimates for the cost of a new drug brought to market range from hundreds of millions of dollars to billions. How on earth would this work without patent protection?"
If you are willing to roll back those figures to adjust for the effects of inflation, I can think of a couple of ways it HAS worked in the past. As a part of the mandate for university research (which is admittedly a fast dying part of society) and offshoot research (in the case I'm thinking of, the German coal industry.)
I'm in no way saying that the current development model hasn't had past successes, but like all of mans constructions, it may be already outdated, like the 8 track tape player or even wire recorder which gained favor at about the same time. I invested a little money in a pharm company that has an OUTRAGEOUSLY costly anti-cancer drug, simply because I hated the company and its morals. Over the years I have realized that most of the companies that have zero social concessions are the most spectacular successes in a capitalist marketplace. True to form, I doubled my money.
If you look through the surface layers and embroidery, here is how this patent protection is working in the managed economy we have. At a basic level, there are safety nets for people with medical needs. Key to those nets are insurance companies (for profit). As long as the insurance companies could cap lifetime expenses, and exclude some rare expensive diseases or procedures from policies, there was relatively inexpensive health insurance. At the same time, profits became so great that regulation came in to mandate at least X% be spent upon actual care and lifetime caps had to be removed and diseases could no longer be excluded. The result was the affordable care act, which was only ever low-cost to those with subsidies. Now, as the real costs are coming to roost I'm hearing of things like insurance companies in Tennessee getting ready to request insurance rates that are 150% of what they were last year. Enter a drug company with a new patented pill that is unique. The law of supply and demand no longer holds. Because of the exclusivity, and because of the mandates for care, instead of individuals looking at a $1,000 pill and saying "H*** NO!" it is covered by insurance. Since the cost is spread over the entire pool of policyholders, Joe's regimen of $1,000 pills only raises the pool payout by two cents. But then there get to be a thousand Joes, and the other pharm companies realize "Hey Wait! With my NEW pill, I can charge $2,000 per pill and nobody can do squat!" If you do simple extrapolation of insurance costs, you will realize that without a major revamp of the system, insurance - private or publicly funded both - will quickly be unsustainable.
There most certainly are inventions (and pills) that are complex enough to require development teams. Putting those teams together most certainly requires money. In software, a lot of those teams are now low paid imported workers. The money that would have gone to creators now goes to corporate profit and middlemen. If you want to live in an increasing oligarchy with increasing restrictions on creation, increasing medical costs, and decreasing spendable income, please continue to support the system the way it currently works. However, it WILL change or it WILL self-destruct.
Remember: you can patent almost anything under the sun with the exception of laws of physics. In order to receive a patent, there is no requirement that the invention be useful. There is no requirement that the invention is economic. There is no requirement that the invention actually, you know, works. There is no requirement that the invention can be manufactured. The mission of the USPTO is to issue patents, not to be a gatekeeper based on the value of the invention.
Here is one of my favorite junk patents that illustrates the above -- US Patent 4,022,227. As you can see from the pics below, this is a patent on a combover. That's right -- a combover.
Is this Donald Trump's patent ?
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