[visualradio]

> I'd think a more reasonable approach could be, you have a patent for 15 years (or whatever arbitrary number is reasonable) or until the patent holder makes some multiple dollar amount from things that use whatever is patented.

The problem with patents is that they are national laws. A 15 year patent on a fusion reactor can be ignored by manufacturers in other countries after waiting 1 day without obtaining a license. Then domestic manufacturers are saddled with legal fees and court costs for decades.

A better reform would be to require the patent filers to declare the quit price at which they are willing to immediately release the discovery into the public domain in exchange for a one time payment. Then if an inventor patents a fusion reactor, and other countries begin manufacturing it immediately while ignoring the patent, domestic manufacturers could crowd source the money to pay the quit price to the inventor to have the patent office destroy the patent after 1 day as well.

> You could also add a minimum number of years (obviously less than the max mentioned above) so companies have some protection across various metrics.

As long as the original inventor gets a cash reward why is a minimum time necessary? If the patent is destroyed one day after being filed the inventor still has the original copy of everything they built and cash reward, they just don't have a monopoly on the ability to make additional copies, and neither does anyone else.