[akqu]

The problem with intellectual property is that it favors the sum, rather than the rate, of innovation. Companies have a natural incentive not to innovate. Since you make profit by not spending the revenue of your previous innovation on new innovation. If you want to have continuous innovation the profit should instead be based on your rate of innovation. Meaning that you don't get a monopoly on past achievements. That is how you don't have to wait decades for new cars or rockets while people with spreadsheets calculate their most opportune moment to start innovating again.

[brownbat]

It's weird how different graphics cards are from pharmaceuticals. Both have big startup and research costs, but GPUs are basically obsolete in a couple years, they run the supply out and constantly plan to move to the next model. Pharma you can do that, or build a portfolio and collect rents for a while.

It's weird that patent durations are one sized fits all, even though how long you can capture value is completely dependent on the industry.