Do patent laws actually help techological innovation?
(technology)I understand the theory behind patent laws.
Some inventions can be protected as trade secrets. You might be able to sell goods made by your recently invented process, while people who buy the goods are unable to reverse engineer the process by buying samples and examining them. But trade secrets can leak, or even worse, be independently re-invented. You might prefer to disclose the secret in return for a legally guaranteed monopoly. And society might have the opposite concern: if the secret is not independently re-invented, people will be paying monopoly prices indefinitely.
Other inventions cannot be protected as trade secrets. Once you start selling, the clock is ticking. Pretty soon others will be selling copies. That skews the priorities of inventors. Inventions, such as drugs, that get copied are only worth a year or two of first mover advantage. It is better to focus on processes that can be kept as a trade secret.
Theory? Meh! Things don't seem to work out like that. Patents get issued on truly original inventions and on lame stuff that any-one could come up with. Make a real invention and you get ripped off by having to license a bunch of pseudo inventions. Or maybe you could just check which areas of technology are covered by "patent thickets" and not try to invent anything in those areas.
There is a lot of history. This article goes over the Wright brother's patents
https://idlewords.com/2003/12/100_years_of_turbulence.htmGenuine, top notch inventions. But even here the patent system didn't work as intended. I find that disillusioning. Do patent laws every actually help inventors?
