If prospect of a reward is all that motivates people to work on problems such as the one you describe, why would a 17-year time period (or a 50-year period, for that matter) motivate them any more than a one-year period? Oligopolies only tend to consolidate further over time, so what would be the practical benefit of the longer time frame? In the end the existing refiners would still wind up benefiting from the idea without having to pay anyone.
My point is that, no matter what motivates technological innovation, making an innovation freely available to ALL competitors in an industry (whether few or many) stands the best chance of bringing its benefits to the broadest group of people (even if those benefits have to trickle down to consumers through oligopolistic competitors). Under the current system, the ability to lock up patents for a substantial period -- whether you intend to use them or not -- is just one more factor that big players can use to keep competitors out of their arena.
It sounds as though your real quarrel is with the decline of competition within an industry as capital consolidates in fewer and fewer firms. THAT, and not the duration of patent rights, is what negates the value of a patent held by someone outside of those few firms, isn't it? And if it is, then the period of the patent protection is irrelevant.
Please clarify "monopoly industry." Does that mean an industry in which only one company operates? In that case, give some examples of such industries. I am unaware of any, other than some public utilities.
In any industry a firm with only one competitor is still an oligopoly, not a monopoly, which seems to imply that the U.S. economy contains no significant "monopoly industries."
Instead of "monopoly industry," which does not even sound like a real-world concept, why not just talk about "dominant firms" to whom a startup with an invention poses, or fails to pose, a threat? But what is the significance of your term "threat," anyway? If I have invented something that has commercial potential, how does whether or not it poses a threat to a dominant firm explain why I would be waiting around with no plans for using it?
To me, it makes a lot of sense to have patented ideas become part of the public domain unless the holder of the patent takes reasonable steps to either commercialize it or sell it to someone who will. Other than the patent holder, who would suffer from having innovative ideas pass into the public domain where they would be available to any company, large or small?
Slashdot Mirror
If prospect of a reward is all that motivates people to work on problems such as the one you describe, why would a 17-year time period (or a 50-year period, for that matter) motivate them any more than a one-year period? Oligopolies only tend to consolidate further over time, so what would be the practical benefit of the longer time frame? In the end the existing refiners would still wind up benefiting from the idea without having to pay anyone.
My point is that, no matter what motivates technological innovation, making an innovation freely available to ALL competitors in an industry (whether few or many) stands the best chance of bringing its benefits to the broadest group of people (even if those benefits have to trickle down to consumers through oligopolistic competitors). Under the current system, the ability to lock up patents for a substantial period -- whether you intend to use them or not -- is just one more factor that big players can use to keep competitors out of their arena.
It sounds as though your real quarrel is with the decline of competition within an industry as capital consolidates in fewer and fewer firms. THAT, and not the duration of patent rights, is what negates the value of a patent held by someone outside of those few firms, isn't it? And if it is, then the period of the patent protection is irrelevant.
Please clarify "monopoly industry." Does that mean an industry in which only one company operates? In that case, give some examples of such industries. I am unaware of any, other than some public utilities.
In any industry a firm with only one competitor is still an oligopoly, not a monopoly, which seems to imply that the U.S. economy contains no significant "monopoly industries."
Instead of "monopoly industry," which does not even sound like a real-world concept, why not just talk about "dominant firms" to whom a startup with an invention poses, or fails to pose, a threat? But what is the significance of your term "threat," anyway? If I have invented something that has commercial potential, how does whether or not it poses a threat to a dominant firm explain why I would be waiting around with no plans for using it?
To me, it makes a lot of sense to have patented ideas become part of the public domain unless the holder of the patent takes reasonable steps to either commercialize it or sell it to someone who will. Other than the patent holder, who would suffer from having innovative ideas pass into the public domain where they would be available to any company, large or small?