In The Economist for August 8, there’s an article on the problem of patents. The article questions the utility of patents and points to a number of situations in which patents appear to block innovation or have nothing to do with it. Here’s the tag line:
Patents are protected by governments because they are held to promote innovation. But there is plenty of evidence that they do not
Much of the industrial revolution, for instance, came about without patents in key areas–or basic scientific research leading the way. Plenty of patents on paper clips, perhaps, but not on key facets of looms or locomotives. The article points out that the early use of patents was to generate income for a ruling government. It is only later, such as in the US constitution, that there’s an effort to make patents serve the public good by promoting “progress in the useful arts.” This American approach to patents takes the form, then, of a counter to trade secrets and a prospect of financial incentive to produce new things. If your creative folk can’t innovate because everyone is keeping secret how they do things and no one can figure out by inspecting or fiddling what those secrets are, then perhaps the patent is a serviceable tool.
The article points to a 2004 National Academy of Sciences report that argues
The benefits of patents in stimulating innovation appear to be highly variable across technologies and industries, but there has been little systematic investigation of the differences. In some cases patenting appears to have departed from its traditional role, as firms build large portfolios to gain access to others’ technologies and reduce their vulnerability to litigation.
and adds further Continue reading