Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter (now X) and Square (now Block), sparked a weekend’s worth of debate around intellectual property, patents, and copyright, with a characteristically terse post declaring, “delete all IP law.”
X’s current owner Elon Musk quickly replied, “I agree.”
This argument makes no sense. Manufacturing lines are built all that time for unpatented products, plus a competitor can’t just “take all of that work and investment”, they will need to put in money to create their own product, even if it’s a copy they still need to make it work, as well as build their own production capacity.
They’ll be second to market, and presumably need to undercut price to get market share… This is a very risky endeavour, unless the profit margins are huge, and in which case, good thing that there’s no patents…
If the research is so costly and complex (pharmaceutical, aeronautical,…), then it should be at least partly funded by the government, through partnerships between universities and companies.
Patents are not a solution.
And cheaply, because the research and productisation has been done by somebody else - this is an argument for patents
Not true. One major issue is that many competitors literally copy the product exactly. Fake products wreck the original company
That is 100x easier when you have a working product to clone
The point is exactly that the fake product undercuts the original by a huge amount (they had no investment to pay off).
I agree that the government model makes sense for a lot of areas and products. But note that a government won’t invest millions or billions in developing a product if another country immediately fakes the product and prevents the government from collecting back the taxes it spent on the research.
As I discuss above there are lots of criticisms to the current IP laws - adjustment is 1000x better than abolishing a system that has driven research and development for several hundred years
It seems you misunderstand the goal of goverment. Goverment doesn’t care if budget goes down, when quality of life goes up. What is the point of not researching and having bigger budget, if it can’t buy thing that did not get created?
And then on goverment level there is no such thing as copyright or patent. On goverment level laws are not some external condition, but something that changed regularly.
They STILL need to put in money to create their own product. You know, they can’t magic production lines into existance.
This is your opinion of what you want governments to be, not what they actually are.
What a lot of negatives and hypotheticals. All solved by getting a return on investment and having that money to do more things with, including research.
I’d like to introduce you to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) which is an intergovernmental organisation that does precisely what you say doesn’t exist.
Sure, but the cost to duplicate the product is tiny compared to researching, developing then creating a production run for it. And this fake normally severely impacts the profits for the inventor.
But now we’re just repeating the same arguments.
I am sorry your country doesn’t try or even claim to be social.
So in the end money will be spent on research anyway.
And what next? It can’t stop any goverment from ignoring copyright or patent.
You’re utterly delusional. If this system has done anything is to stiffle small, independent producers and consolidate power in megacorporations.
This is the kind of crap you’re defending: https://patents.justia.com/patent/12268585
This is a random, recent patent from P&G. Read that bullshit, and then tell if if what they’re describing isn’t the most generic design for a diaper or sanitary napkin ever?
“One permeable layer facing the wearer, then a semipermeable layer that tries to only allow liquid to move away from the wearer, then an absorbing layer, then an outer impermeable layer”
Oh boy, if it wasn’t for that patent, I’d be pumping 500 million dollars into building a factory so I can flood the market with my cheap fake products! - said nobody when they read that.
It’s hilarious how far removed from reality your ideal of patents is…
You appear to want to completely burn down a system you don’t understand because of some examples of misuse. For example, as there are slumlords, should we make all property free? Or should we solve the underlying problem (of massive capital flows to the rich?)
You also have no idea how to read and understand a patent. The way they are written is horrendously verbose and highly confusing, but so are medical research papers or legal case summaries, and for the similar reasons: these are highly technical documents that have to follow common law (i.e. a long history of legal decisions taken in IP disputes).
The real problem in the US IMHO has been the constant defunding of the patent office that has allowed a large number of very poor patents to be filed. The problems you are screaming about largely go to that root cause.
But don’t throw the baby out with the bath water - you have no idea how bad that would be for everybody but the mega corporations.
Cool story bro.