Comment Re:Software patents aren't the only ones that suck (Score 1) 217
You notice the problem that it is much easier to analyze inventions and copy them than it is to hide the invention. Why would anybody innovate products that require significant R&D then?
In general, differentiation. If nobody develops anything, instead choosing to use what everyone else has already developed, the field will stagnate and all products will gradually become the same. This could lead to a few outcomes, unfortunately:
1. Pure price competition. Could be beneficial to consumers, but I don't think this would be the *only* thing happening.
2. Increased advertisement of everything. If your product is the same as your competitor's, advertise! This would be bad; one can only hope that the public consciousness will become more resilient against advertising and defeat this approach. We're already seeing people ignoring banner/popup ads and eliminate TV ads with their Tivos...
3. Actual product differentiation. In this model, everybody has something different to offer. This is what competition really means -- one approach to one problem may or may not work, but out of a thousand approaches to the same problem, a few probably will work quite well. The solutions that do work will be adopted (copied, stolen, whatever), and then people will *move past them* and start the cycle all over again. I hope.
You point out that drugs are at one extreme, having high development costs and low manufacturing costs. This applies with just about any information technology, and that's what recipies are: information. I'm not quite sure what to do about that ;)
Perhaps getting rid of patents wouldn't be the best idea. What about simply reducing the time period? Fourteen years may have been a reasonable time in the early 1800s, but today it's an eternity. Patents that lasted for only a few years (maybe more or less for certain products?) could be a suitable compromise.
In general, differentiation. If nobody develops anything, instead choosing to use what everyone else has already developed, the field will stagnate and all products will gradually become the same. This could lead to a few outcomes, unfortunately:
1. Pure price competition. Could be beneficial to consumers, but I don't think this would be the *only* thing happening.
2. Increased advertisement of everything. If your product is the same as your competitor's, advertise! This would be bad; one can only hope that the public consciousness will become more resilient against advertising and defeat this approach. We're already seeing people ignoring banner/popup ads and eliminate TV ads with their Tivos...
3. Actual product differentiation. In this model, everybody has something different to offer. This is what competition really means -- one approach to one problem may or may not work, but out of a thousand approaches to the same problem, a few probably will work quite well. The solutions that do work will be adopted (copied, stolen, whatever), and then people will *move past them* and start the cycle all over again. I hope.
You point out that drugs are at one extreme, having high development costs and low manufacturing costs. This applies with just about any information technology, and that's what recipies are: information. I'm not quite sure what to do about that
Perhaps getting rid of patents wouldn't be the best idea. What about simply reducing the time period? Fourteen years may have been a reasonable time in the early 1800s, but today it's an eternity. Patents that lasted for only a few years (maybe more or less for certain products?) could be a suitable compromise.
