[tylerhou]

I don't know about this. Without protection from copiers, there is no incentive for anyone to create a new mechanism or invention. It's true that patents can slow the growth of an invention after it is created, but you haven't accounted whether patents incentivize more inventions. That might (and probably does) outweigh the technological progress on a particular invention that a monopoly impedes.

[TaylorAlexander]

> Without protection from copiers, there is no incentive for anyone to create a new mechanism or invention.

Totally untrue and this is one of the weird myths people have been taught, despite obvious evidence to the contrary. Very likely this website is running on Linux, an OS created in part by corporate contributors but also in a huge way created by people who work while explicitly enabling free copies of their work. And of course with my 3D printer example, thousands of hackers from all over the world contributed to design improvements because they wanted to, sharing their work for free as open source. And then there's Bunnie Huang's wonderful story on the ground from a highly productive space with rampant copying:

https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284

If you believe "there is no incentive" then none of the above would be true, but since it is true I would invite you to think critically about your starting assumptions.

[tylerhou]

No incentive might be hyperbolic, but this is an HN comment. I meant less incentive.

https://rufuspollock.com/papers/optimal_copyright_term.pdf

[SequoiaHope]

I would welcome a world where copyright restrictions ended 15 years from date of creation as this paper suggests, which would be a huge improvement from the status quo. Sadly the paper only seems to go over copyright.

But take the 3D printer example. Development by my subjective take seemed way more effective without patents. So why have them at all? More people did more work on them after the patents expired. Why have any period of limited growth if there will simply be more growth without the restrictions?

Well, I haven't proven completely that this concept is universally true, but I worry that "playing it safe" and just fighting to keep shorter restrictions is like loosening the rope around your neck when you really should remove it.

And your paper suggests they have a really nice formula ("99% confidence interval") for calculating the optimal term. But how would you calculate the optimal term for patents on AIDS medications during the height of the AIDS pandemic in Africa in the 1990's.[1] How much is each life worth? I question anyone who thinks their formula can calculate optimality on figures alone.

[1] https://www.mmegi.bw/features/the-neoliberal-plague-aids-and...

EDIT: I should underscore that there are a lot of natural reasons why someone would be in a position to invest in a particular innovation. We say we love free markets because natural incentives work best. No constraints but the laws of physics. IP restrictions are very unnatural.

[Fredej]

The argument would probably be that without patents, what reason does companies have to disclose methods of operation? Everything would become a trade-secret.

With patents the deal is as follows: Tell us how you made it and we will make sure that noone else copies it for a while. This system allows for knowledge to be shared between competing entities. One of the requirements for a patent is literally "The descriptions must be sufficient to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains to make and use the same".

For medication, the reason why it can even go off-patent is because the patent exists in the first place. Without the patent, there would be no public information about how to make the medication.

I'm not saying that this is the case for all inventions. But I do think that patents have their place. The current form might however need revisiting.

[TaylorAlexander]

Maybe everything would become a trade secret but given what is at stake I wouldn’t assume that to be true. We’ve seen in the open source world that collaboration can be a valuable tool for everyone involved. Even big industry players understand there are benefits to open source.

And for medication we see companies abusing the patent system, reformulating drugs and re-patenting them. Though there’s something rotten about the other parts of the system that make this worthwhile.