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Patents That Kill
wabrandsma (2551008) writes From The Economist: "The patent system, which was developed independently in 15th century Venice and then in 17th century England, gave entrepreneurs a monopoly to sell their inventions for a number of years. Yet by the 1860s the patent system came under attack, including from The Economist. Patents, critics argued, stifled future creativity by allowing inventors to rest on their laurels. Recent economic research backs this up."
I wish I could find the link, but no luck so far. There was a speech given to the house of lords in England in the 1700s where an attorney argues that copyrights are only beneficial to the copyright owner, which tends to not be the artist where the copyright is intended. Print shops would demand copyright to print a book, but of course they would pay the artist a few pennies for their troubles. The speech covers a well known English auhor's family woes after his death. Even though he was a well known author and sold enough books that he should have been wealthy, after he died his family was left destitute. The reason was because a publisher owned all of his copyrights and his family never received a penny in royalties.
Of course the copyright holder (publisher) was suing the house to extend copyrights, because it's so beneficial to the economy.
A bit off topic I realize, since TFA is about patents. The thing is though, the arguments stay the same. It is not like John the inventor gets to hold his patent and benefit, it's more like John the inventor's patent was 90% owned by the company he worked for because they sued him for the rights.
Some things never change. This has a lot to do with why they try and make backroom laws like TPP, CISPA/SOPA type laws, etc.. Rational people would point out the flaws, so in the US we just make the discussions a matter of national security so people don't know. Thank goodness a few companies got on the bandwagon with CISPA/SOPA, but the next versions are not being discussed publicly and are works in progress in the Senate and House.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Since a stated reason of the copyright and patent systems are to encourage creation, how does letting someone collecting money off of one thing their entire life, much less after they are dead, encourage them to continue to do more work to keep getting their paycheck?
OMG What will Capital Records and Disney do if they could only own their IPs for 10 years? Billionaires would starve and their kids would only have 15 lifetimes worth of money to inherit! Perish the thought!