Actually, the US Patent Office has now started doing this to a degree, in that they publish some applications before they are approved.
In my opinion this is a disaster for the patent system. The idea of patents is that the government grants a 20 year monopoly in return for a full disclosure of the invention. So why would the government do this when they seem so opposed to monopolies? The benefits of full disclosure outweigh the 20 year cost: advancing research, allowing others to compete after the 20 year period, encouraging investment in expensive R&D for eg medicines. Without these benefits, the inventor would pursue the invention (if at all) as a trade secret, which has some legal protection but does not advance society in any way. Coca-Cola, for instance, has been protected for over 100 years by going down the trade-secret route.
So what's the problem with publishing applications before they are granted? Simply that if the application is not granted, there is then no possibility of protection as a trade secret - it's public knowledge. So what then? Simply put, inventors won't try to patent inventions, but will keep them as trade secrets. Imagine what the world would be like today if some of the life-changing inventions of our times were mystery black boxes, with no possibility for development apart from by the inventor. If the transistor was a trade secret, we'd all be using AT&T 1MHz computers today. Is that something we really want? The patent system isn't really there for 1 click-ordering, it's about the cure for cancer and HIV, quantum computing, and transport systems that defy our current understading of physics. Can't we live with Amazon's stupidity for those?
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In my opinion this is a disaster for the patent system. The idea of patents is that the government grants a 20 year monopoly in return for a full disclosure of the invention. So why would the government do this when they seem so opposed to monopolies? The benefits of full disclosure outweigh the 20 year cost: advancing research, allowing others to compete after the 20 year period, encouraging investment in expensive R&D for eg medicines. Without these benefits, the inventor would pursue the invention (if at all) as a trade secret, which has some legal protection but does not advance society in any way. Coca-Cola, for instance, has been protected for over 100 years by going down the trade-secret route.
So what's the problem with publishing applications before they are granted? Simply that if the application is not granted, there is then no possibility of protection as a trade secret - it's public knowledge. So what then? Simply put, inventors won't try to patent inventions, but will keep them as trade secrets. Imagine what the world would be like today if some of the life-changing inventions of our times were mystery black boxes, with no possibility for development apart from by the inventor. If the transistor was a trade secret, we'd all be using AT&T 1MHz computers today. Is that something we really want? The patent system isn't really there for 1 click-ordering, it's about the cure for cancer and HIV, quantum computing, and transport systems that defy our current understading of physics. Can't we live with Amazon's stupidity for those?