Comment on Palworld confirms ‘disappointing’ game changes forced by Pokémon lawsuit
Critical_Thinker@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Why is there nothing in place to punish Ninendo for doing shit like this?
Patent law is rigged. Legal monopolies shouldn’t exist.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I agree IP law is messed up, but that doesn’t mean the idea doesn’t have merit.
Having a temporary, legal monopoly on something that requires a lot of R&D and not much production cost (say, a novel or new kind of asphalt) allows the creator to make back their R&D costs before competitors come out with cheaper alternatives. Without that protection, companies would be less likely to invest in R&D.
We need shorter durations and more scrutiny on scope. Also, patents should generally not apply to software.
HalfSalesman@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
As an incentive structure for corporations and “people” purely motivated by avarice, sure.
Most people naturally want to create and contribute as long as their needs and most basic wants are met. A monopoly as an incentive is not necessary.
There are many ways to motivate corporations to do R&D outside of offering them a monopoly on a silver platter. Incentives are only one half of the equation. Its really all about leverage.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
The main alternative is offering them a subsidy on a silver platter, but then you’re making everyone pay for that R&D, not just the customers who want whatever that product is, and there’s no protection against IP theft unless the government owns and enforces the patents or something abroad.
I personally prefer the IP law approach, but I think it needs significant reforms, both in duration and the approval process.
HalfSalesman@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
With a monopoly, you may very well be making everyone pay for the increased price gouge that comes with monopolies. Not just the customer of that particular product. It depends on the nature of the product.
If it is a component of a more common device or product, basically everyone ends up paying more (HDMI comes to mind). If its an innovation relating to a basic need and gets integrated with the majority of services, basically everyone ends up paying more. If its something that has external implications on the market or wider world that creates inefficiencies, then people functionally make less money because effect people pay more and thus long term this harms spending on a variety of products. If people can’t afford the price gouge and continue using less effective products (assuming they are even available) they likely long term spend more money to make up for the inefficiencies from that.
Monopolies damage things beyond the product that gets monopolized and merely concentrates wealth.
Regardless a subsidy is not the only alternative. That’s still thinking in terms of carrot, and you are forgetting the stick. You can also legislate mandatory R&D in budgets for large corporations based on revenue/profits just as much as you with the punishment of potentially being fined/taxed more.
But outside of that, there is also government contracts. That is, a single payer, (monopsony) generally can get fantastic results out of competing firms. Its largely a major reason why the American Military has historically benefited from such significant technological advancements for nearly a century now.
SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
R&D for many companies is taking the research done by underpaid graduate and PhD students and using that to create some sort of product or buying out the startups those students created and building from that.
We already love in a system where the majority of costs are publicly subsidized (and that’s not mentioning the myriad of direct subsidies these companies receive, for an especially egregious example look at the amount Pfizer got paid to develop the Covid vaccine) and then the result is patented and privatized.