[EggsOnToast]

Those are both really broad statements. Developing innovative software costs money as does developing an innovative product or technology. The point of patents isn't to incentivize implementation it's to incentivize innovation.

[gt_]

Whether OP peanut it or not, patents “incentivize” innovation with a terribly simplistic model of what that involves. The difference between “innovation” and “implementation” is like the difference between a business and it’s business plan. The motivation to regulate it is obvious but the results remain difficult to defend in light of the associated problems introduced.

[EggsOnToast]

I don't agree. I think that while it can be difficult to defend every instance of a patent or a particular implementation of patent law, this doesn't mean that every patent is bad or that the concept of patents is bad and needs to be outright abandoned which is what the OP was discussing.

America's patent system may not be perfect but this doesn't mean it's outright unproductive. This holds especially true when evaluated based on raw innovation. America's tech sector speaks for itself but is far from unique, America's pharmaceutical industry also comes to mind. Although widely criticized, and rightly so, the American industry produces nearly a third of the world's new molecular entities.

[slyfocks]

Patents are far from the only factor affecting innovation, yet you seem to conclude that patents are good based on level of innovation in the US.

A logically similar argument (“fallacy of the single cause”) would be: Hawaii has a relatively low rate of gun violence yet their gun ownership is high, ergo gun ownership must be fine.

Of course some patents are good, but as market concentration increases in the US, IP has become abused by entrenched oligopolistic corporations. Most recent reputable studies find that the US patent system has probably been a net negative on innovation of late [1].

[1] https://www.economist.com/node/21660559