Ask Slashdot: What If Intellectual Property Expired After Five Years? 577
New submitter ancientt writes "As a thought experiment, what if the constitution of the U.S. was amended so that no idea (with exceptions only for government use, like currency) could be protected from copy or use beyond January 1, 2035 for more than a five-year period. After a five-year span, any patent, software license, copyright, software NDA or other intellectual property agreement would expire. (This is not an entirely new idea, but would have had significant recent ramifications if it had been enacted in the past.) Specific terms are up for debate, but in this experiment businesses must have time to try to adjust to sell services and make the services good enough to compete with other businesses offering the same basic products. Microsoft can sell a five-year-old variant of OSX, Apple can sell Windows 2030. Cars, computers and phones would, or at least could, still be made, but manufacturers would be free to use any technology more than five years old or license new technology for a five-year competitive edge. Movie, TV and book budgets would have to adjust to the potential five-year profit span, although staggered episode or chapter releases would be legal. Play 'What if' with me. What would be the downsides? What would be the upsides?"
Not all Patents are the Same (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not all Patents are the Same (Score:5, Insightful)
How about letting patent examiners determine the duration instead of keeping a fixed time for everything? Pharmaceuticals with decade long trial periods would be protected for longer, software patents (like "slide to unlock") only for a few years.
Mixed, but overall positive. (with one exception) (Score:5, Insightful)
On patents:
All but the richest biggest incumbents would benefit
On copyright:
Large publishers and the copyright dinosaur industries would have to change for the better, society would benefit.
Some small companies and individuals would benefit massively from more freely being able to build upon the work of others.
Some small companies and individuals would suffer as large corporations would find new ways of screwing them over.
On trademarks:
It makes no sense to expire trademarks after 5 years. Society as a whole would suffer.
JK Rowling would be pissed (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether this is a downside or an upside is up to you.....
I don't think 5 years is a long enough period for film development and recovery of costs. I do think 15-20 years, perhaps with a 10 year extension on payment of a fee would do it though.
Re:Not all Patents are the Same (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not mind (Score:5, Insightful)
As the sole owner of 3 patents, I do not mind if all my patents expire tomorrow
At that time I filed my patent for self-protection - not for profiting from the patents
You see, the world we live today is so fucked up, that if you invent something really brand new and you do not patent it, you just _might_ get sued !
Re:Not all Patents are the Same (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not all Patents are the Same (Score:5, Insightful)
How about letting patent examiners determine the duration instead of keeping a fixed time for everything?
That would just lead to companies bribing patent examiners and the whole system would be corrupted.
Re:Not all Patents are the Same (Score:5, Insightful)
My personal opinion on this is that, to fix the issues around patenting of pharmaceuticals, the best is to devise a new system to substitute the one based on patents. I think it would be preferable for the state to grant monopolies after the fact. Maybe using some auction system, maybe something else. Once a possible drug has been determined as being promising, the state could contract someone to do the clinical trial, or perhaps even do it itself through funding for universities, or other organizations. Of course, this rises the specter of corruption and so on, but i think it is likely that such a system could be engineered to work a lot better than the existing one.
This type of system already exists in other areas. Nuclear plants in most countries are owned by the state and operated by private companies. Similar arrangements exist for the production of explosives and some poisonous substances. Mining is another classic example of such a type of system.
As things stand nowadays, the best way of sinking a promising therapy is to publish the details unpatented. This is a ridiculous state of affairs, and could be fixed by a scheme like the one above. Also, since patents expire without anything to mitigate the effects, there is an incentive to invent nonexistent illnesses and useless drugs, a behavior which is itself dangerous to public health.
Re:Not all Patents are the Same (Score:5, Insightful)
Pharmaceuticals would still be in clinical trials when their patents would expire. How about we just focus on getting rid of bad patents that don't bring knowledge or insight to society?
I had the same thought about the pharaceuticals. Even non-pharmaceuticals can have a long time-to-market once the patent has been filed.
A better idea would be (say) 20 years from filing or 5 years from the date of first sale, whichever is sooner. 20 years might be a bit generous... I don't know the specifics of clinical trial durations, but just a date so you couldn't just sit on the patent forever.
With a 5 year duration, the 'bad patent' thing would probably solve itself.
Publishers would flee the US in droves (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ooo, I know this one. (Score:2, Insightful)
It would not be feasible to invest on many things anymore.
I need to point out the above as a very seditious lie
A lot of inventions do not cost tons and tons and tons of $$$
In fact, MOST inventions, and I mean, genuine inventions do not cost billions of billions of research
The fact that things are costing that much isn't because it's about invention - most of the costs are related to SELF-PROTECTION, ie:
* Getting people to carry out a global search on the competitors, see that if your invention(s) infringe on their patents, or not
* Paying lawyers to figure out a way to NOT GET SUED, especially those frivolous lawsuits filed by the assholes who got nothing better to do than trying to extort money from others
* Making sure that your inventions are covered with layers upon layers of insurance - just in case some stupid fuckers use your new invention and hurt themselves
In other words, the megabucks that are often involved in the "inventions" are actually NOT within the invention loop.
The $$$ are there to pay the legal racketeers
Re:Not all Patents are the Same (Score:4, Insightful)
How about we just focus on getting rid of bad patents that don't bring knowledge or insight to society?
...because this is a thought experiment about enacting a hard limit on the protection of intellectual property.
If the five-year clock started ticking when the product was brought to market--i.e., after development and clinical trials--it would circumvent the long lead-time for drugs. The most common argument against reducing the lifetime of drug patents is that the cost would go up and/or that no one would make drugs anymore because the profit margins would be too low and/or innovation would be stifled as "talent" (used to describe MBAs, not PhDs) migrated to more lucrative businesses. I find the latter arguments absurd, much like their cousin, the argument in favor of ridiculously high executive compensation.
Personally I think that five years of the exclusive right to sell is plenty if the composition of matter and other broad drug patents don't change. They allow a company to make minor structural changes, perhaps even something as simple as the counter ion of the protonated form that is packaged for sale, and then re-brand as a new "gotta have it" drug while simultaneously preventing others from selling less-closely related structural analogs. If the patents timed out five years after the drugs went to market, then drug companies would have to rely on marketing and quality assurance instead of lawsuits. It would also allow competitors to start exploring derivatives of a break-through drug much sooner, which would in principle lead to better drugs over all in the same way that the free sharing of results rapidly accelerated semiconductor technology in the early part of the Cold War.
When faced with any disruptive technology or shift in public policy, the arguments pretty much go the same way. Con: time-tested business models will become obsolete, storied corporations will go out of business, the lack of competition will drive prices up, innovation will be stifled--things will be much different than they are now and that is bad. Pro: time-tested business models will have to be re-thought, storied corporations will give way to fast-growing newcomers, competition will drive prices down, innovation will abound--things will be much different than they are now and that is good. Current examples include the film, financial, and health insurance industries. Past examples include the telephone, automobile, and airline industries. I think that you can take any of those as examples supporting either the pro or con position, depending on whether or not you like change.
Re:I do not mind (Score:2, Insightful)
As the sole owner of 3 patents, I do not mind if all my patents expire tomorrow
At that time I filed my patent for self-protection - not for profiting from the patents
You see, the world we live today is so fucked up, that if you invent something really brand new and you do not patent it, you just _might_ get sued !
That works for you and congratulations. But for others, it's a different story.
As the GGGP said, there are things that have a long time horizon before one can possibly recoup R&D and other investment costs - many things take much longer than 5 years. And if you factor in a decent ROI that investors will require, I see a lot of ideas never making it to market or even developed because there's very little hope of reouping investment let alone making a return.
I get the impression from a lot of posts here that everyone is thinking of this problem from a software point of view - very little investment is required compared to many other things out there; like pharmaceuticals for example.
Try to think sometimes (Score:5, Insightful)
Well.. it also means that after 5 years your photos are not your anymore. So please now image photos you made 5 years ago, they could be used in the anti-diarrhea commercial! Isn't this cool?
Re:Spoilers (Score:0, Insightful)
Of course international law overrides national laws. Overriding national laws is the one and only thing international law is for.
Linux would be public domain (Score:5, Insightful)
... and therefore free to use for any purpose without having to distribute the source.
Re:Not all Patents are the Same (Score:5, Insightful)
A better idea would be not to lump in patents with copyright and so on. Patents already have far shorter expiration dates than copyright, although software patents should be nixed completely.
Re:JK Rowling would be pissed (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? Nobody forced anyone to buy her books. What's your problem with her getting rich for bringing enjoyment to millions of people who felt it was worth their cash?
Re:I do not mind (Score:5, Insightful)
...and most of the new drugs are small increments on existing drugs , mostly for near terminal conditions that affect mostly rich westerners
They are in the business of 'inventing' very expensive drugs, because the current patent system encourages this ...
Without a patent they would be trying to invent cheap large volume drugs instead ?
Re:it would work as intended. more resources for f (Score:4, Insightful)
Authors can, and do, change publishers midstream in a series.
In your example, publisher A decides to short change Ms. Moss on book 5. Ms. Moss moves to publisher B. Publisher B can print book 5 and beyond, and book 1. They get Ms. Moss to modify book 1 slight to make an "updated" version. They also add a "World of PooperLand" appendix which describes never before revealed details about the setting of the story. Finally, for a couple grand they hire an artist to make a set of illustrations for the book. They re-brand the entire thing and push it out the door 1 month before publishing book 5. Then, every year, on the dot, they publish updated versions of books 2-4 with the new illustrations and further insights into PooperLand. By the time they get to book 4, book 7 (the last of the series) is just about to be released and they make yet a new boxed set that includes an exclusive 1-month early version of book 7, for only $500.
Meanwhile publisher A is sitting on books 2-4 and can try to blackmail Ms. Moss by refusing to sell them, hoping the scare her back to the fold. But this just creates a demand for these books that publisher B can exploit every year. So instead, they simply sell as many as they can and when the copyright ends, try to flood the market with free stuff. But they can't hope to compete against publisher B because every true PooperFan (AKA "Brown Pants") knows that publisher A is in league with the devil.
No problem.
Re:I do not mind (Score:5, Insightful)
...and most of the new drugs are small increments on existing drugs , mostly for near terminal conditions that affect mostly rich westerners
They are in the business of 'inventing' very expensive drugs, because the current patent system encourages this ...
They are in the business to make money. The most money can be made by marketing a drug that does not cure anything, but must be continued to be taken for as long as a person lives. That's their holy grail.
Cures are useful for killing their competitor's products, but isn't a golden goose that continues laying eggs.
IMO, pharma patent laws should be modified to steer research into what's best for the people, not best for the shareholders. Drop the extended patent terms for anything that isn't curative.
Re:I do not mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Excuse me? So the reason pharmaceutical companies need long patent times is because they fail often when developing drugs? Yes, that's a really good way of getting the market to work. How about reducing the protection for them so that only the best companies survive and the bad companies go away?
The capitalistic systems of today are starting to look a lot like the old one from the USSR with one (or a few) huge players planning the development for everyone...
Obviously you're pretty ignorant on the concept of research. Who was it that said "if I knew what I was doing it wouldn't be called research"? Even the best researchers don't know ahead of time which drugs will successfully treat the given problem with acceptable side effects.
Re:I do not mind (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean the taxpayer-funded research done at universities that's then licensed to the pharmaceutical companies?
Nothing like paying for something twice.
Re:I do not mind (Score:5, Insightful)
As the GGGP said, there are things that have a long time horizon before one can possibly recoup R&D and other investment costs - many things take much longer than 5 years. And if you factor in a decent ROI that investors will require, I see a lot of ideas never making it to market or even developed because there's very little hope of reouping investment let alone making a return.
A greater argument for the socialization of pharmaceuticals, I have not heard.
If the government were in charge of the pharmaceutical industry, there would be no need for a "decent ROI," nor would there be incentive to "treat" illness as opposed to cure it.
Not-so-funny aside there - I can't understand these folks who actually believe that a for-profit drug manufacturer has any interest whatsoever in curing diseases they currently make billions off 'treating.'