[mbreese]

Patent rights exist because they benefit the public. A patent is a grant of a monopoly of an invention for a limited amount of time. After the patent expires, then the public is free to use the invention. I get what you're saying, but states typically operate on a different time-scale. So, long-term the public definitely benefits. They also benefit in the short term by having access to an invention -- in this case a pigment -- that didn't exist before.

The government gets an automatic license to that patent, so there is also that benefit that the government doesn't end up paying for the invention multiple times.

The counter argument to your question is: why should I work to invent something if I can't benefit from it?

I believe that the concept of the patent is a decent compromise between the two points of view. I don't think that the question of who does the initial funding is necessarily as important. And the Bayh-Dole act was specifically written as an effort to encourage more federally funded research to be made commercially available to the public. Before Bayh-Dole, this compound may have been academically interesting, been researched, published, but then left on the shelf for many years before someone found a commercial use for it. Now, trying to find a commercial use is actively encouraged (or required depending on which tech-transfer office you're talking to). The thinking behind this is that an invention that is available in the market (even patent-protected) is better than an invention that is sitting on the shelf in a lab. Eventually the patent protection runs out and the public gets an even better benefit.

But you're right that it's a trade-off.

[ranie93]

>Patent rights exist because they benefit the public.

I don't see how your following statements support this claim. Specifically in the short term, you say that the patent provides access to an invention (through the company or whoever will sell the invention). Is this necessarily the case?

>[...] but then left on the shelf for many years before someone found a commercial use for it

It doesn't seem clear to me how the ability for something to be privately patented suddenly makes it accessible to the public.

If government funded research discovered this pigment, then DuPont can still benefit from the process-- they'd just have to pay royalties to the government (i.e. the taxpayers) whose money gave rise to the invention in the first place.

"[...]state influences on innovation and technological developments within the private sector using Apple as an example, for the way they popularized the government created technologies of GPS navigation, touch screen technology, and voice recognition into the modern smartphone. She also gives the example of how the US National Science Foundation funded the algorithm which helped create Google's search engine. Mazzucato argues that the private sector makes up the last and least risky part of technological innovation and entrepreneurship." [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State

[mbreese]

> Specifically in the short term, you say that the patent provides access to an invention (through the company or whoever will sell the invention). Is this necessarily the case?

It is not necessarily the case that a patent will lead to a commercially available product. But, a patent is a public document. At the end of the protected time period, the invention described by the patent is available for the public to use.

If the patent didn't exist, the secrets behind an invention would be hidden from the public. But, this comes with a risk for the company in question... if someone else figured out your secret (independently), then you would have no protections and your secret could then be used by this new competitor. A patent is a defense against this. An inventor agrees to make their secrets public, in exchange for a time-limited monopoly to their invention.

Both parties gain something. The public gets to know how something works -- and the rights to use this knowledge for free in the future. The inventor gets a short-term monopoly on this IP and immediate protection from competitors to make money.

> It doesn't seem clear to me how the ability for something to be privately patented suddenly makes it accessible to the public.

Because the institution (normally a University) now has a motive to market this invention. Before Bayh-Dole, something like this pigment would have been noted in a lab notebook and maybe the bright blue color would have been mentioned in a journal article. But, because the University can now use this IP to license the pigment commercially, there is a motive to pull this IP off the shelf at the lab and into the market.

> If government funded research discovered this pigment, then DuPont can still benefit from the process-- they'd just have to pay royalties to the government (i.e. the taxpayers) whose money gave rise to the invention in the first place.

Which would you rather handle the licensing of the IP for this new pigment? A large federal bureaucracy, which is now on the hook for managing the IP for all government grants, and really doesn't have any strong motivation to market the IP? Or the University which stands to make a lot of money to help fund their research and academic missions? One of those entities is more motivated to get this invention licensed and (hopefully) available to the public.

Again, Bayh-Dole was designed specifically for this purpose -- to move the gatekeepers of government funded research away from the federal government and out to the institutions that had more motivation to push these discoveries to the public faster.

I haven't read the The Entrepreneurial State, but the opening synopsis on Wikipedia supports this logic.

> book written by Mariana Mazzucato which argues that the United States' economic success is a result of public and state funded investments in innovation and technology, rather than a result of the small state, free market doctrine that often receives credit for the country's strong economy. (from the Wikipedia page)

A key driver behind the US economy has been public and state funded research. The mechanism that this research makes it to the broader market (faster) is by moving the licensing away from the federal government and towards the research institutions.

[CorvusCrypto]

Does the US government get royalties from product sales on an invention that came solely du to its funding sources?

If the answer is no then I'm with the other commenter, all the rest of the points are a sidetrack. You're saying everything about pushing inventions into market faster. Great. However the argument was around "why aren't we getting the money back from direct profit from these inventions?" The taxpayers are the ones that front the money. The taxpayers can be likened to the investors. However it is, in every case, that the tax payers don't get anything out of this. Benefit to society, you might argue. But I'm not feeling as the beneficiary when I pay a shit ton for medicine or a specific item because it's patented, even though NSF or NIH funded the research.

And the other side effect you mention, of protection from competition, I'd argue that is a negative. You already get the headstart on research and the money to do it in the first place. Why do you get so much time to have your product untouchable after the fact? I wouldn't doubt it if this protection is why we see abuse of the medical or automobile industry's prices for things.

If you are a private inventor, using your own money, sure. Give the protections. If you use government grants, I'd say that the government owes it to us to document any invention from it and give it open competition access or get royalties from its sales.

And yes, I'd rather the government handle IP rather than DuPonts research team. Every single time.

[TallGuyShort]

Why should I work to pay taxes if I don't benefit from it?