Ask Slashdot: What If Intellectual Property Expired After Five Years?

New submitter ancientt writes "As a thought experiment, what if the constitution of the U.S. was amended so that no idea (with exceptions only for government use, like currency) could be protected from copy or use beyond January 1, 2035 for more than a five-year period. After a five-year span, any patent, software license, copyright, software NDA or other intellectual property agreement would expire. (This is not an entirely new idea, but would have had significant recent ramifications if it had been enacted in the past.) Specific terms are up for debate, but in this experiment businesses must have time to try to adjust to sell services and make the services good enough to compete with other businesses offering the same basic products. Microsoft can sell a five-year-old variant of OSX, Apple can sell Windows 2030. Cars, computers and phones would, or at least could, still be made, but manufacturers would be free to use any technology more than five years old or license new technology for a five-year competitive edge. Movie, TV and book budgets would have to adjust to the potential five-year profit span, although staggered episode or chapter releases would be legal. Play 'What if' with me. What would be the downsides? What would be the upsides?"

Comments

Not all Patents are the Same

[AlexBirch]

Pharmaceuticals would still be in clinical trials when their patents would expire. How about we just focus on getting rid of bad patents that don't bring knowledge or insight to society?

Re:Not all Patents are the Same

[michelcolman]

How about letting patent examiners determine the duration instead of keeping a fixed time for everything? Pharmaceuticals with decade long trial periods would be protected for longer, software patents (like "slide to unlock") only for a few years.

Re:Not all Patents are the Same

[Mindcontrolled]

If you leave the decision to the examiners, you'll just get the effect that each and every applicant will be unhappy with the assigned duration. Result: at least two additional office actions per application debating the correct duration for the patent in question. I am not opposed to different durations for different patent classes, but there have to be clear rules, or it'll be a hell of a mess.

Re:Not all Patents are the Same

[rmstar]

How about letting patent examiners determine the duration instead of keeping a fixed time for everything?

My personal opinion on this is that, to fix the issues around patenting of pharmaceuticals, the best is to devise a new system to substitute the one based on patents. I think it would be preferable for the state to grant monopolies after the fact. Maybe using some auction system, maybe something else. Once a possible drug has been determined as being promising, the state could contract someone to do the clinical trial, or perhaps even do it itself through funding for universities, or other organizations. Of course, this rises the specter of corruption and so on, but i think it is likely that such a system could be engineered to work a lot better than the existing one.

This type of system already exists in other areas. Nuclear plants in most countries are owned by the state and operated by private companies. Similar arrangements exist for the production of explosives and some poisonous substances. Mining is another classic example of such a type of system.

As things stand nowadays, the best way of sinking a promising therapy is to publish the details unpatented. This is a ridiculous state of affairs, and could be fixed by a scheme like the one above. Also, since patents expire without anything to mitigate the effects, there is an incentive to invent nonexistent illnesses and useless drugs, a behavior which is itself dangerous to public health.

Re:Not all Patents are the Same

[flyneye]

I think it may have the effect of weeding out some of the bullshit pharmaceuticals. Especially if we don't allow unfinished (untested) products from being copyrighted/patented. I can't patent an unfinished invention, I can't copyright an unfinished book, they can't own vaporware. " It ain't done, till it's done."
Products like Mediator,or weight loss pills that undo your heart valves wouldn't make it to market let alone the patent office. Of course we would wait longer for medicine that worked and some would suffer and die. Surprise, we've waited this many thousand years for a cure/treatment, don't bring me shit that doesn't work or causes something worse. Not an issue.

Further, I think we could lead the world in this 5 year I.P. ownership. Some would say, the world would run us over with their laws, but we will either need to diplomatically get them to see the light and include it in treaties/agreements or just flat out quit recognizing their I.P. after 5 years and let them figure it out for themselves.

Mixed, but overall positive. (with one exception)

[Anonymous Coward]

On patents:

All but the richest biggest incumbents would benefit

On copyright:

Large publishers and the copyright dinosaur industries would have to change for the better, society would benefit.

Some small companies and individuals would benefit massively from more freely being able to build upon the work of others.
Some small companies and individuals would suffer as large corporations would find new ways of screwing them over.

On trademarks:

It makes no sense to expire trademarks after 5 years. Society as a whole would suffer.

JK Rowling would be pissed

[maroberts]

Whether this is a downside or an upside is up to you.....

I don't think 5 years is a long enough period for film development and recovery of costs. I do think 15-20 years, perhaps with a 10 year extension on payment of a fee would do it though.

Re:JK Rowling would be pissed

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Why? Nobody forced anyone to buy her books. What's your problem with her getting rich for bringing enjoyment to millions of people who felt it was worth their cash?

Time dependent on awesomeness..

[Eaglehawk]

I think the time of the patent, software license, copyright, software NDA or other intellectual property should relate to it's "impact".

eg. Swipe to unlock. Length: About 10 secs. Hoverboard. Length: 10 years.

I would have suggested relating it to the cost of discovery, but there's some things that would not have cost much, but the impact would be huge. I'm sick of these "obvious" patents being awarded to companies, but make them last only a short period might reduce the companies from submitting silly patents.

Re:Logos and trademarks

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Trademarks are not copyrighted they are trademarked. There is no time limit on trademarks.

I do not mind

[Taco Cowboy]

As the sole owner of 3 patents, I do not mind if all my patents expire tomorrow

At that time I filed my patent for self-protection - not for profiting from the patents

You see, the world we live today is so fucked up, that if you invent something really brand new and you do not patent it, you just _might_ get sued !

Re:I do not mind

[usuallylost]

You see, the world we live today is so fucked up, that if you invent something really brand new and you do not patent it, you just _might_ get sued !

In my mind this and the proliferation of, at best, highly questionable patents is the real problem. I don't see a huge problem with the duration of patents. In part because some really innovative technologies, medications for example, cost billions of dollars to develop and the time to recoup that investment is going to be longer than five years.

The duration of copyrights on the other hand are absolutely obscene. Even there five years is really short. I think the danger with such a short term would be that it would empower large corporations to some degree. After all other companies have the resources to go out there and compete head to head even if there is no copyright. The small content creator, without a major corporation behind him, is basically forced to try and compete in a wide open market. My guess is the small creator would just get crushed if anything he made caught the eye of a major company.

I think the real problem is that patents and copyrights have been corrupted. Both are good ideas and encourage people to invent and create things. The problem is they've both been corrupted to the benefit of a few entrenched interests. Copyrights in particular bear little resemblance to what they were supposed to be. I mean the whole point of them was to encourage people to create things so that the public domain would be enriched. Now they've become a tool for the virtual destruction of the public domain. Which is clearly not what was intended.

Re:I do not mind

[JasterBobaMereel]

...and most of the new drugs are small increments on existing drugs , mostly for near terminal conditions that affect mostly rich westerners

They are in the business of 'inventing' very expensive drugs, because the current patent system encourages this ...

Without a patent they would be trying to invent cheap large volume drugs instead ?

Publishers would flee the US in droves

[psychonaut]

Publishers and other IP holders would flee the US in droves. Hollywood and Silicon Valley would cease to exist as world centres of filmmaking and software development, respectively. Without the obscenely long protection period afforded by current copyright and other IP laws, major publishers would no longer consider it profitable to arrange for their works to be produced in the US. They would instead move their operations to countries with IP laws favourable to their monopolies. Perhaps a better thought experiment would be if most or all countries cut their copyright and other IP terms simultaneously. If just one of them does it all that will do is hurt their competitiveness in the international IP market.

It isn't just the USA

[Taco Cowboy]

Whether you live in USA or Europe or Asia or Timbuktu, them fuckers will sue you if they think they can get $$$ from you

Look at how many patent-related lawsuits that are filed in Japan, Korea, Europe, Singapore, if you do not trust me

Re:it would work as intended. more resources for f

[rufty_tufty]

Okay, let's be a nasty person and game the system.
I've just had a new author come to me with pretty good kids book. Let's call her K L Moss. Her first book is well received but nothing special. A year later she comes back with book 2. That does significantly better. The first print run sells out immediately(I intentionally did a small one to minimise my risks). I then start a year long publicity campaign on books 1 & 2. Book 1 is now 3 years old.
By the time book 3 is ready I decide that it will first have a good year of publicity and excerpts published in small chunks to build up anticipation. Now I'm selling books as fast as I can print them.
By the time book 4 is ready copyright has expired on book 1. It's not really worth anyone else printing book 1 as its available on e-readers for free. No-one else will make a deal with Ms Moss under better terms for book 5 because they can't do the group deal for books 2-4. I can negotiate Ms Moss down to almost nothing. I can keep printing book 1 and pay her nothing.

Under such a short copyright term I can only see ways to screw over authors it sems to me that they will suffer more than the publishers. Also IMO you want profitable publishers so that they can afford to take a risk on new authors. If they become more risk averse that will be bad for authors and the public domain.

A much simpler first step would just to be to say that companies cannot own copyright only people. That copyright then expires on their death. Copyright is not transferable(although the royalties could be). That would then prevent the CEO/founder of the company owning all the copyright.

I say all this in the knowledge that my job is to produce copyrighted/secret code. Under the current system the company owns this code and will forever because they employed me to write it. However that code has a halflife of about 2 years because technology marches on and others innovate along with us. So producing something once will almost certainly not make you set for life. It's worth groking why Ms Moss effectively gets more protection in that regard than I do.

Try to think sometimes

[Jacek Poplawski]

Well.. it also means that after 5 years your photos are not your anymore. So please now image photos you made 5 years ago, they could be used in the anti-diarrhea commercial! Isn't this cool?

Lack of Understanding

[coldmist]

I saw the title and was already afraid of how the post was going to be worded. Within reading the first 2 sentences of this article, I was cringing.

If you can't express yourself properly, nobody will take you seriously, and you won't win any intellectual argument.

Let's reword the title: What if Exclusive Intellectual Property Control Expired After 5 Years?

See the change? Intellectual property (or IP as everyone calls it) has existed, exists, and will exist forever. The exclusive control (with a few exceptions) over reproduction, distribution, etc is a limited monopoly granted by copyright and patent law, where the exclusive control lasts for a finite time. The authority to do any of this is in the US Constitution, but only in the simplest of terms. In order to change it, for all intents and purposes, one needs only to get (or buy) legislation--not amending the constitution itself--to change the rules of the game.

And, even this monopoly is a modern creation. Historically, most of all the worlds best music, paintings, etc were produced under patronage, where a wealthy person would pay the creator (which might include letting the person live on his estate, etc) to make a work for him. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage#Arts

Now, on to the real reason of your article: What if this exclusive control period was reduced to 5 years.

I have looked at this for a long time, and I have come to some conclusions myself. Let me share my conclusions.

My personal opinion: Patents have never had their duration period expanded. They are still 20 years. Why? Patents benefit companies/corporations for the short term for the original purpose -- to prevent a competitor from 'stealing' the idea and mass-producing it, reducing your rewards -- in the short term, but it is in their interest to get access to the IP in the long term. So, it's "naturally" limited in that sense. If one company got all patents lengthened to 100 years, they wouldn't be able to use a competitor's ideas either for 100 years.

But copyright is another matter. In this case, it's publishers (today) against the consumer. There is no "natural" limitation in the sense that to a publisher, the consumer is just another lowest common denominator revenue target, and not a competitor (that they want to 'limit') nor a high-value content producer that they can exploit. Once you see this, you see how they try to get copyrights extended to 'one day short of forever' (can't remember which liberal congressman said that recently, but one did) so they can abuse/extend their monopoly against 'us' if you will, with the content they already control.

For copyrights, there is no 'natural' competition to keep the game honest. So, will your 5-year period ever happen? Not without a revolution.

Now, as to your 5-year period. It's too short. It takes 3-6 years to get a product, like a new car model or a new CPU architecture, or a new DRAM standard, etc into production and into the market. With a 5-year exclusive period, it could be over before a company can make any money on their 'creativity' and a competitor could steal their thunder quite easily. For copyright as well, it could take 2-5 years to produce a movie, and they lose control of it in the same time as it took to make it? That makes it too short, as it could dissuade creative people from even trying to write/produce content.

But, the current 120-150 years is a joke. The US founding fathers struck a good balance: An initial 14-year copyright term, with an optional 14 years if the author is still alive and deemed it 'worth it' to pay the fees to extend it once more for another 14 years.

Since most books only have a single printing, the first term is long enough to motivate people to 'produce', while it's short enough that if it doesn't work out as the author intended, then the public can extend the idea on their own. It's the porridge is too cold/hot problem. There has to be a bal