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turkalino@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

I find it interesting that you draw the line at software, as if it doesn’t require time and money to create software solutions.

If it matters, I’m of the opinion that patents shouldn’t exist period. Capitalism loves to brag about encouraging competition and how much it benefits consumers, when in reality patents are super anticompetitive. An idea is one thing, executing the idea well is another. If I “take” your idea and execute it better than you, there shouldn’t be legislation stopping me

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Dsklnsadog@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

I “take” your idea and execute it better than you, there shouldn’t be legislation stopping me

THANK YOU. Exactly. Competition is supposed to decide who wins, not the state. If your invention is genuinely great, you should dominate because you innovate faster, manufacture better, support customers better, reduce costs better, and improve continuously, not because the government threatens competitors for 20 years.

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Soapbox@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Imagine you are an inventor and come up with a brilliant new thing, and start a business to sell it. You even bring in people to help manufacture and make them a co-op. Doing everything ethically right. Selling a quality product that people want.

Then a multinational conglomerate sees it is selling well and they use their immense resources to scale up production, produce and sell it for half the price you can.

You and your co-op go out of business and megacorps shareholders pocket even more dividends.

Thats why patents should exist in a capitalist hellscape.

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- Dsklnsadog@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  That argument proves the problem is scale and market power, not lack of patents.
  
  Giving everyone a legal weapon sounds fair in theory, but in practice the biggest companies have the best lawyers, the biggest patent portfolios, and the most money to litigate. Patents often become a moat for incumbents, not a shield for small inventors.
  
  A pro-market answer would be: reduce barriers to entry, punish fraud, enforce contracts, maybe protect trade secrets narrowly, but don’t ban competitors from building better versions.
  
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  - Soapbox@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    I still think the patents need limitations.
    
    1 year limit if not actively being used for a product in production.
    
    10yr total limit.
    
    Something like a video game mechanic should be limited to 2 years from first use.
    
    Patents should be a limited way to protect and support innovation. Patent hoarding needs to be stopped.
    
    Drug patents should have same limitations unless its something the government deems too critical, and then the company should be reimbursed for their research costs and the patent killed.
    
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    Dsklnsadog@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    Your proposal is definitely less bad than the current system, but it still assumes innovation needs a government referee deciding who gets exclusivity, for how long, and when taxpayers should compensate private research.
    
    That’s the part I can’t get behind.
    
    If the product is not commercially viable without monopoly protection or public reimbursement, maybe the business model is the issue. And if the government reimburses the company, that just means society absorbs the risk while the company keeps the upside.
    
    Who decides the reimbursement amount? Who pays for failed research? Taxpayers? Competing companies? Consumers?
    
    Private companies should be rewarded by the market when they create value, not guaranteed protection from competition and then reimbursed when the state decides the invention is important.
    
    Shorter patents reduce the damage, but they don’t remove the contradiction: a “limited monopoly” is still a monopoly.
    
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