[oezi]

Getting exponential curves right is very tricky though (just look at Covid). I believe using such escalating fees would just favor the big companies who can stay ahead of the curve.

Another idea I think worth exploring is mandatory licensing at fixed rates which decline over years and/or are tied to revenue the patent holder generates with the patent. The goal really should be to increase utility of the patent for the public.

[kortilla]

> I believe using such escalating fees would just favor the big companies who can stay ahead of the curve.

But that’s fine. If a company can rake in so much money off of one product it’s still providing an obscene amount of value.

[nicoburns]

No it's not. It just entrenches the position of those who have money, to the disadvantage of everyone else.

[kortilla]

No it doesn’t. The whole point of charging exorbitant fees is that the money is being pulled out of the company. That’s the opposite of entrenched.

[nicoburns]

But it doesn't only apply to large companies. It also applies to small companies. And the point at which the small company will have to stop paying the fee because they can't afford it will be much sooner than the large company. Thus giving an advantage to the large companies.

[kortilla]

But that’s fine. If the small company isn’t pulling in a ton of revenue on the product it wasn’t reaching a lot of society.

It doesn’t matter if Google is paying or Widget firm X. Google isn’t going to keep paying if the patent isn’t sustaining itself anymore than Widget X.

[extropy]

Right and someone at the board meeting will ask - what if we dropped that 10B annual patent fee.

[p1esk]

Benefits of this proposal outweigh the cons. Average length of patent protection will decrease.

[nicoburns]

> Benefits of this proposal outweigh the cons. Average length of patent protection will decrease. reply

Why not do that in the straightforward way of simply decreasing the patent protection duration? Or as other people have suggestion: make it contingent on the type of thing being patented.

[p1esk]

Because different patents might have vastly different value. If someone has invested a billion dollars to develop some new technology, they might want to benefit from it longer than someone who invested $10k. Yet, this scheme still allows the $10k investor to keep protecting his invention in case it's wildly successful.