Why PATENTS are a BIG ECONOMIC PROBLEM - VisualEconomik EN

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[@richdobbs6595]

Software patents end up being terrible, since it is rare that the patent office can really judge what is innovative. In most cases once an issue becomes important, it is comparatively easy to forge a solution to that problem.

[@Shanajio8]

True! In Software it is mostly not about the solution, but (identifying) the problem!

[@me0101001000]

I'm an engineer, and I have my own little tech startup. IP is crucial for protecting my company's inventions, of course. But unfortunately, at the same time, large companies are known to buy out patents and shelf them, or participate in IP trolling if they pose a threat to their profits. This happened with Intel when they developed a way to produce CVD based diamonds, which was trolled, bought, and shelfed by a diamond company (deBeers, I believe). And this kind of thing is a fairly normal thing. I don't think IP should be abolished, because I need to protect my work, but I do think that stricter rules should be made for patent trolling, and I think that there needs to be something to protect against these "bad faith buyers" as I like to call them.

[@julonkrutor4649]

Wath would be your solution to the trolling?

[@me0101001000]

@@julonkrutor4649 well, I'm a bit hesitant to say much, since my background is in tech, not law. But I would probably want to do more rigorous inquiries in regards to infringement cases. Often times, IP trolls will sue simply due to the most off-chance and seemingly pointless detail, but they'll sue for absurd amounts of money because they have the money to do so. This makes them awfully similar to SLAPP suits. I don't know if we can legally treat IP troll cases as SLAPPs, but I think grouping the two would be a quick way to close several loopholes for bad faith lawsuits.

[@sagmilling]

There should be a 'use it or lose it' component to most IP. Take the example of 'abandonware' software, stuff so old that it isn't sold or supported anymore. Even thought the Disney-inspired copyrights are insanely long is some countries, nobody is profiting from abandonware anymore, so it belongs in the public domain. Same for patent trolls, if they aren't using it (and have no prospect of ever using it), then the patent automatically becomes public domain.

[@bestimmtkeinbot9793]

I think inventions should not be "protected" the way patents do, but instead be rewarded in some way and then be free to use by anyone.

[@me0101001000]

@@bestimmtkeinbot9793 how would you reward though? Does the assignee get paid in royalties? Are they rewarded upon filing? How would that work?

[@ole.petersen]

There are countless examples of open source software companies that make money by hosting their own software and promising support. See Vercel, Ory, Supabase, Hashicorp... And as a software developer you tend to massively prefer these open source offers since it makes the development easier, you always know that you could in theory just self host the software and you can be confident that when the company should go bankrupt the community can still maintain the software. I don't remember the last time I used a proprietary library, be it privately or professionally.

[@adamdrake6242]

There is an interesting dimension here that you don’t discuss. The effect of patents on employees. The fast way to acquire a tech, even with patents is to recruit the other sides top talent. Sounds good for them except that even with patents increasingly draconian non compete agreements already hinder people from moving to new jobs using their hard earned skills….

[@skeptic1124]

In my neoliberal capitalist country there is a law called the prevention of market competition. It allows employers to include a clause in the contract with their employees, which state that you agree to pay astronomical fines (like 2 years worth of salary) to the employer, if you quit your job and work the same job at another company, within 5 years after you quit. Most of the time nothing happens if you do it, but they have a legal basis to go after you and it makes people afraid to change jobs.

[@tjoyce1971]

Copy Rights and Patents are entirely different, Patents apply to all implementations of the patented idea where as copy right applies to a specific work, the exact way you wrote it. Applied to software a copy right law suit is for when you believe the other developer copied your specific code, a patent law suit is where they copied the ideas on which the software is built but it doesn't require any actual piece of the original code to be in the program. If you're going to do an episode like this it's important not to conflate the two because they work in different ways.

[@bluegas]

Finally! I was so appalled with the ignorance in the first seconds of this video.

[@KamiInValhalla]

I am fine with patents if they are limited to just 5 years for example to incentivise developing the patent and bringing it to market. But I would be totally fine without it as well.

[@bluesteel1]

exactly my thought

[@osopolar3740]

Temporarily for 5 years is fine with me, until the companies adapt to the change.

[@EmperorTakashi]

Perhaps shorter durations on patents would be a good call

[@madskaddie]

Open Source use copyright as a fundamental mechanism to protect it self from the "proprietary" world. Technically, the phrase "they (nginx,apache) are not copyrighted" is completely wrong.

[@ferdomravec1520]

China: Patents ... what patents ?

[@stivenstivens]

Products funded with private money should be patented. Products funded with public/gov money should be open/free.

[@jameswyre6480]

Love this, you did a fine job of not getting into the weeds on a complex topic. Could do with more videos about systems from admiralty/shipping, mechanics of quid pro quo campaign finance in the US (the unique and legal economy of buying the law), comparative economies that go from bad to worse due to dictatorship becoming consolidated, all good!

[@newhoggy]

It's incorrect to claim that open source software is "not copyrighted". All open source software is copyrighted but also have that have a permissive license.

[@richardhemingson3824]

I really loved hearing about how this works and would love a deeper dive into it.

[@Omer1996E.C]

I'm actually against patents, at least patents that lasts for long and are inefficient

[@oppionatedindividual8256]

Go back to school, there’s this little thing called economics. And then within it there’s this little thing called profit incentive. What a ridiculous view to be anti patent out of pure ignorance.

[@wizardhacker2887]

@@oppionatedindividual8256 is that why insulin is so expensive?😒

[@MattDelaney]

@@wizardhacker2887 Only in the US. It's cheap everywhere else in the world. Patents only last 20 years. The modern method of making insulin has been around for over 50. It's not patents making it expensive.

[@Omer1996E.C]

@@oppionatedindividual8256 the reason why we have capitalism and free market system, is to provide a natural non distortionary long term profit incentive that benefits everyone. And I indeed study economics, as I am a 12th grade social science student in addis ababa, ethiopia, from the top 5 students among 200 grade 12 social science students in my school, according to our school director's office. And I'm the best at economics among these students. I might be an 18 years old guy, but I'm comparatively very good at economics, as it is by far, my favorite field and subject

[@anky_but_on_steroids3750]

You're actually against patent evergreening

[@edwardrobinson4940]

Comparing copyrights to patents and software to pharmaceutical drugs and concluding that patents are a big economic problem is just stupid.

[@theo4312]

As someone who works for an Intellectual Property firm, the message of this video (do you need exclusive rights to generate innovation) is pretty sound, and the examples can be useful in isolation. But I do have a problem with the conflation of the examples to draw a conclusion because the examples cannot be directly compared and it misses a lot of nuance. For example, copyright is not the same as a patent and this should have been made clearer; patents are used and relied upon very differently in the pharma and software sector and so this is not in and of itself a useful comparison without further explanation; and the first mover advantage of book authors is a bit confusing because UK author's have no copyright in US, but then the argument is that the US publishers secure the 'exclusive rights' from a UK author - so what rights, there are none - essentially you are relying on the US publisher's trust not just taking the book and publishing it anyway. Of course a UK Author would not trust that publisher to publish their second book - but then this system would almost require an industry of 'middle men' to stop a single author being taken advantage of. This has its own problems. Also I don't think anyone is arguing that getting rid of copyright for authors is beneficial - it's not like the UK author is going to write more if they didn't have US copyright... So yes the examples are a little muddled and I don't think the limitations of the examples are well explained. FYI - I do love this channel - if the team want to reach out to me I'd be happy to provide notes on a script :)

[@erincarson8998]

The publishers license the trade-secret of the written work prior to worldwide publication. While it remains a secret, only the licensees can print the work ahead of release. A rival would struggle to print fast enough to recover the deficit. People prefer to support the original work, usually also. Failure to pay the license fees is fraud or larceny, as it constitutes a breach of contract. The patent examples represented the most different circumstances easily conceivable. The three examples represent a wide diversity of consideration intentionally. It is solid work, and you know it. Your proposal is worse in all considerations, except to deceive. Stop gas-lighting people.

[@theo4312]

@@erincarson8998 hi, thanks for your reply. I have a few questions and comments: 1) a trade secret relies on a contract between the author and a publisher. However, there is no guarantee that a publisher would enter a contract with an author without first reading their work. Perhaps they would sign an NDA beforehand (and the publisher should although, not all authors would be so savvy. Also a third party publisher (the rival) could probably print a nice looking rip-off within 6 months, and that may be worthwhile? I'm not sure, but that third party publisher would be breaching any contact, because they didn't enter into a contract with the author. In conclusion, I was just trying to say the logic is somewhat flawed. In reality, UK authors are protected under US copyright law as if they were US authors because of international agreements: the Berne convention, and the TRIPS Agreement. This is why authors are protected from rogue publishers, they can sure under US copyright law.

[@theo4312]

@@erincarson8998 2) i agree, the patent examples do represent different circumstances. My point was that it's a bit confusing to muddle different types of IP, copyright and patents. And this point was not communicated accurately. 3) I agree that the examples provide a narrative which supports the original conceit of the video which is why I said I agree in my first comment. 4) I made no such proposal, I was just working through the logic provided within the video. And I had no intention to deceive, apologies if it came across that way. Similarly, I don't know how I am lighting people? And again, apologies if it came across that way.

[@Celis.C]

So what if we kept the patent system, but companies have to make them public as soon as they can (mandatory) demonstrably show that they have recouped the invested research costs?

[@bigmekboy175]

You'll see a lot of Hollywood accounting. For instance, according to Fox and Disney Return of the Jedi was an incredibly unprofitable film that still hasn't made its money back. Drug companies would do the same thing.

[@Celis.C]

@@bigmekboy175 Those things should be fairly easy to circumvent. For one, a company will always target a time frame for ROI. If their investors continue to hear they're not reaching that target, then they would bail out. Furthermore, a reasonable limit could be put on patents. "You have 7 years to return investment, after that it's public by default". Some exceptions can be made for medical investments where appropriate, but you get the idea. So with a reasonable system in place, would that not work? I know people _love_ to nitpick the details, but humour me for a bit?

[@anneonymous4884]

You should also talk about how IP laws increase inequality. Look at the work of economist Dean Baker.

[@betreadam1267]

Thank you

[@atanasnachkov4030]

yes, can you explain the proposals? Thanks!

[@Alex_Dumitrache]

Would like to hear about the proposed changes.

[@Omer1996E.C]

Please, make it, don't ask us, surprise us

[@colinpratt7618]

My understanding is that the principle behind patents is to make the details of inventions public whilst giving the inventor a temporary monopoly on the invention. Without them, we would get more industrial secrets and less access to the details of inventions. I personally think patents have their place, but I do not think software should be patentable, which they are not, as far as I know, in the UK.

[@theo4312]

Good point. As another point software is patentable in UK, so long as it does something technical e.g. enable better control over a device, or improve an algorithm for machine learning. So the UK patent system does exclude a lot of "big tech" activities generally because the youtube algorithm for example doesn't do anything "technical". Also as far as I'm aware there's been a couple of recent decisions in the US patent system which essentially renders software a lot harder to patent - bringing it in line with other parent systems.

[@osopolar3740]

The idea is precisely that the details of the inventions are not known, if a person invents a new material, that person will want to have the recipe under lock and key, so he can sell it to a company, that company will stipulate how much it would cost to invest in research to obtain the new material and will arrive at an average price. Anyway, what's the point of knowing the details of an invention if you can't copy it?

[@theo4312]

@@osopolar3740 you are describing a trade secret here (e.g. the coca cola recipe) - these are only protected in so far that the company spends resources protecting them (e.g. educating staff on what they cannot say, internal processes to restrict access, etc.). If you patent a material and the details are absent such that a person could not make that material, then that patent is invalid because it is not "enabling". In fact, someone else could come along and (even after the prior patent is published) file a patent for the same material and describe how to make that material and be awarded a valid patent later (if they can show to the patent office that the prior patent application is not enabling).

[@chimpanzzzgamer]

What you forgot to mention is that a lot of R&D for necessary medicine is funded by taxpayers and then the pharma companies patent it and sell it at a huge mark up..

[@toom2141]

Great to see that you returned to your original style (considering the last two videos about Barcelona and Cruise ships). Really good video. Thank you :)

[@Drakelett]

Not sure what you're getting at but I found the cruise ship one interesting.

[@derrekvanee4567]

This. Ftw. More interesting and genrally rwlovent.

[@VM-is8by]

In India....can copy the medicines without issue....here only the process can be patented....other companies can make same compounds with a different process...

[@michaelhughes6634]

For medicine absolutely

[@mikatu]

The problem with patents are the patent trolls. And the fact that nowadays you can patent the most stupid stuff, like curved corners on a smartphone.... There are even companies patenting body parts. How crazy that is? A body part is something natural, is not invented but by having a patent a company can force anyone that treats that body part to have to pay for it.... simply because someone owns a patent.

[@ramabg2]

Key 4G & 5G technologies is patented under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND). Life saving medicine should fall under this categories.

[@jamestajiri58]

Computer industry offers a compelling argument against patents

[@jamestajiri58]

You said 80% of new drugs were relative drugs to compete but that creates competition that helps lower price

[@lorddread606]

I kept an open mind and found your points valid but not enough to convince me of your premise. Then again, perhaps patents are indeed a big economic problem BUT only for countries leeching on other countries with strong patents laws thereby promoting the most innovations.

[@Anti-CornLawLeague]

Switzerland had no patent system until 1907, as they viewed alit as an impediment to free trade.

[@aleksandraolbrys154]

I would like to know more about the subject

[@damiensadventure]

At 8:03 I'm like that guy is poking the screen lol

[@snackplissken8192]

If you think about it, stealing ideas from others and doing your best version of it is the basis of all language, culture, and invention for intelligent social animals. The English Bards and Greek Playwrights appropriated ideas from their peers the same way that Dolphins and Crows do. Patents are the aberration. Thus it would make sense to err on the side of less powerful and durable patents rather than more.

[@moonstruck336]

Well done! Loved it and learned a lot!

[@mtldragon9860]

Is this similar to what happened with the Renaissance, the decline of alchemy and the rise of science?

[@sydneyw1699]

This sounds similar to what Elon did with Tesla its kinda a hybrid system but it be interesting to see if the effects of multiple car companies switching to EVs was effect by their ability to get see how Tesla accomplished this or just market demand/governmental incentives

[@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks]

I've always supported a system that I've coined OpenPatents, which in no way is an original idea mind you, but like Open Source software, you would be able to freely modify and distribute a patented work, invovate upon and make money off of that product. It's fueled and incentivised by royalties at a standardized and decreasing rate as patents building upon your patent are sought. This makes it such that no matter who copies or uses your work you should get paid, while also incentivising innovation by reducing the cut the originator can take lest they file more patents iterating on the design, building upon others works as well. I also think that copyright should be overhauled such that short of copying a work word for word, the use of characters, situations, melodies, worlds, lore, artistic elements and themes should be freely usable by fans, and limited to other for profit commercial entities. Warner can include mickey in their project as a complete and exact copy as a cameo or interest character. They would not be able to take the world of marvel and write a complete original movie using Spiderman, for example. Nevermind that copyright would not be transferable, and the original author has the exclusive rights to the works they create. Unless such a project is the product of corporate committee in which the rights will stay with the corporation. Exclusive rights last only so long and the original author exists and are not transfered in the event of corporate acquisition and dissolution. The rights would stay with the corporate entity that created the work and that entity would need to remain in existence for that project to remain copyrighted.

[@cmw3737]

I like the OpenPatents idea. Building on the shoulders of giants and paying them a bit to do so should be the default minimum license agreement. A bit like laws that prohibit discrimination of who can serve as a customer, that should include anyone who wants to use your patents providing they pay a fair price that is subject to anti-price gouging laws.

[@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks]

@@cmw3737 price gouging is a myth. Reality is that supply and demand drive prices and to maintain availability price often has to increase and fluctuate. If someone takes a water bottle into a storm battered area and sells it for 10 bucks that is a fair price sorry.

[@happyelephant5384]

12:00 wouldn't they just download your video and post it if KZbin didn't endorse your copyright on this video?

[@MattDelaney]

The key difference between software and pharmaceuticals is one needs clinical trials which cost over a billion dollars to run. Who the hell would invest that much without any protection? It would be months, not years before your competitors were producing and you'd be billions behind.

[@antoniocilindro850]

I’m curious to hear opinions on parents protecting critical technologies that can impact world stability, such as fighter jet technologies or the ones used to built a nuclear weapon? I’m not an expert on the matter, so I don’t know if they fall under other rules beside the export control regulations. Also, I still see the damage of not having parents. For instance, a U.S. or European plane manufacturer will lose their competitive advantage with a Chinese one (see Airbus and Boeing vs Comac, where the latter might have a competitive advantage due to the low labor cost). Or the case of a small startup with a brilliant idea, maybe already in the prototype stage, but a bigger and well-known company will copy and quickly distribute it, leveraging the scale and the popularity of its brand.

[@pete-m86]

If software development was subject to the same quality, safety, and testing standards as pharmaceuticals, the industry would not be the rosy picture you paint. Have you ever read the EULA (end user license agreement) of the software you use? Would you EVER agree to such a thing applied to your medication?

[@albertomigliavacca8320]

I advise anyone interested on this topic to read " the case against intellectual property " by M. Boldrin and D.K. Levine

[@gogs8166]

But developing a new anti-biotic is by your definition not innovative. It does the same as other anti-biotics. But as it is we can barely keep up with growing bacterial resistance. Even a slight change in development rates could be catastrophic

[@dylreesYT]

Only thing I feel wasn’t addressed in this video was the cost of innovation debt. If a drug company is able to create a new medicine and then others can copy it without needing to purchase all the things which they currently need to copy then upon release, while the original company may have had the “being first” advantage, the copycat is able to sell it cheaper simply because they don’t have billions of dollars that need to be repaid. Unlike books, medication isn’t something that has market saturation as drugs are consumed they will need more, so they will go with the cheaper option, eventually making the risk of bankruptcy even greater. Another example is Samsung and Apple; both are massive trusted companies who piggyback off one another. If one company invents a software then the other copy-pastes it, unlike the red hat example, these established companies have the expertise to provide support even if they didn’t invent it, yet the copying company is able to make greater profits because they don’t have the debt load to repay (or in Apple’s case, they will just never make back all the cash they spent until they ran dry or ceased innovating because the incentives outweigh the costs. I don’t necessarily think this is something that can’t be overcome but I would like some video (perhaps a short) addressing it.

[@khathecleric]

We'd have to worry about unfriendly countries copying our tech.

[@RainintheBrain]

We definity need to shorten copyright and patent protections. It is leading to some companies like Disney monopolizing culture. I fear the the long copyrights established by the Sonny Bono Act are leading to cultural decline and lack of competition from movie producers. Characters and stories created by long dead authors are still under copyright For example Batman (Bob Kane d. 1998 and Bill Finger d. 1974) and Superman (Jerry Siegel d. 1996 and Joe Shuster 1992) won't be public Domain until 2034 despite their authors being dead for decades. Spider-Man won't be public domain until 2057. Spider-Man's copyright status is what led to that 2019 trouble between Sony and Disney. If Disney hadn't messed up the copyright laws in the 90s. Disney would have been able to make their Spider-Man movies no problem

[@kantutana13]

this is exactly the case against china inc. right now you can buy high technology products for pennies to the dollar that if you calculate for inflation will be impossible for ordinary people to acquire that can lead to more thought on the misery of life that can spark revolutions. simply saying if there are no cheap android/apple phones that keep people mostly preoccupied and people are stuck in a thought conundrum of how life is miserable and how politicians do not serve them. this is the reason why the french are very militant compared to other european nations, they for the most part did not embrace technological traps.

[@jaredoelderink-wale350]

@VisualEconomikEn Nginx is pronounced "Engine X" 😀

[@cmw3737]

Software takes very little research and development and next to no risk of being a waste of time like blind trials and experiments. It's obvious that applying the same IP laws to software as to drug discovery is patently :) absurd. Even if it can be argued that software patents have some value they should at the very least be limited to 2-5 years max or a small fraction of the length that those products requiring true R&D, which is a long time in software terms. That's my pretty out of the air initial suggestion so I'd love a video that goes into the alternatives that were mentioned from proper academic researchers and analysts that have thought through the game theory and contextual aspects of different sectors.

[@klauszinser]

First i would like to ask, is there no protection for books and music etc as there was nothing for Charles Dickens in 1843 in the US? From what i know, this type of copyright was extended for much too long. E.g. Disney was pushing and they have a big benefit. The same with microsoft with operating systems. Apple nearly for sure has a lot of design patents. I think nowadays its diffucult to make even a spare part of a car for private use. A big disadvantage because of Patents are the patent trolls. There are very large firms who make big problems. Thats something problematic which should be investigated. In the software industry there are nearly no costs for machinery which is an argument for having no patents. Look at 3D Printers. For a long time there were only - and very successful - FDM 3D Printers. It was around 2004 when the british professor Adrian Bowyer started to give ideas of developed 3D printers Darwin and Mendel. The initial inventor for FDM seems Scott Crump. I remember the case of laserbased(?) 3D printers (Laser Sintering) around 2012. When correct there were a lot of patents and a very few companies with expensive 3D printers like Stratasys or EOS (Munich) etc. Nearly no innovation. Laser sintering is still expensive, Sintratec seems to offer one of the cheapest which is still around 6000 USD. There comes the Open Source hardware (e.g. OSHWA). For FDM 3D printers there is a lot of competition. Companies like Prusa in the Czech republic compete sucessful against a lot of chinese manufacturers. Well, Ultimaker in the Netherlands who also offer Metal 3D Printing now, made a fusion with MakerBot (who lost their reputation because of later introduced Patents on originally free products. Nowadays - especially because of a lot of small and hungry firms in china - its more easy to get a hardware product. But going through china could make new competitors. Its also possible to get products from service firms. Cura or FreeCAD are some of the design software products that allow to create designs and send it to these firms to get the designed products. A lot to investigate just for 3D Hardware. An important side issue, having a patent, even without paying the yearly fees, allows the company who invented to make sure there is freedom to operate without being afraid of patent trolls. I think thats the intention of Tesla having patents but saying we don't use patents. The whole subject is very interesting.

[@anthonyhayes3991]

Most people prefer the original. True. "Weird Al" Yankovic still sells recordings

[@M0LHA]

Another great video. Fyi Nginx is pronounced "Engine-X". Terrible name I know! :)

[@johndevine2868]

Copyright and patents are two completely different things!

[@szymonc8739]

Hard to say what if. If there weren’t patents, companies wouldn’t commit funds to R&D in the first place, because whatever you discover could be used by 3rd parties who did not spend single € to co-invent. It’s high risk high reward, one spends a lot of money and one’s later to profit from it by holding a monopoly for some time. 🎉

[@aksbeixhev]

You always get first mover advantage. I think it's more about the length of patents and what they should encompass (ex gene tech patents). It's too profitable today and can prevent competition and further development. Patents make sense to me but he has valid points for why it should be more limited.

[@ArawnOfAnnwn]

Err...did you even watch the video? They literally talk about this argument in it.

[@t.xaviersalgado4106]

it depends on the industry. most of the pharmaceutical research takes years and is the most expensive industry, and for it to be approved it needs to be peer reviewed and approved. meaning, making it is extremely hard and copy, extremely hard. having said that, they shouldn't be longer than 10 years, currently they can pay 20 or 30 years

[@john_doe_not_found]

Patents should expire sooner. Specially in medicine. Generic drugs should be available sooner. 3 - 5 years, instead of 20. Companies would spend less time competing to make 10 different types of viagra and look for other revenue streams. In tech, patents should definitely expire sooner. We are seeing productivity stagnation in the past 10 years, and this will have global implications. Zombie companies hording and renewing patents so they can sue people for profit is part of the dozen+ things stifling innovation.

[@argentaamore]

Patents are vital. But the duration should be reduced. The governments should set a max margin on drug makers during the patent period

[@SumoSuperemo]

If patents are instrument against copy, false credits then I'm for it.

[@give_me_my_nick_back]

The patents and copyrights are alright, the problem is their duration... let's be frank, back then humanity made less progress over 100 years than we do now in 5. For many industries even as short as 2 years for a patent to expire would be enough for the inventors to earn a fortune.

[@jaydenclowers2616]

An alternative to the patent is a system that benefits both and causes innovation

[@jamestajiri58]

You make A compelling argument for innovative changes. I would think changes must be tailored specifically for different products and different markets and that would be a complex process, especially for government control. That might require specialized groups within the justice department and a great compounding of federal law..

[@mehmetalbayrak7404]

I misread patents as 'patients' :D.

[@trevorjoneill707]

to many what if

[@micheleschirru7478]

the truth is that patent trolls are the problem! Plus incompetent patent offices that due to lack of personnel cannot properly assess the thousands of applications received each year! PS writing a patent at the end of the day can be a pure dialectic exercise. If you write well enough with the right language you can BS your way through to patent anything!

[@NoobGamer-sc9lt]

monopoly is illegal unless it put under the greater good term, human like to be free by nature and there're many ways to work around that in case of patent be the first and keep innovating and send product to market to make patent or patent troll useless one thing I like about china lack of enforcing patent laws because of how harmful they're and it's been forced on them to join WTO which is another monopoly hope Visual Economik make a piece about it

[@jumpingjames3625]

A legal means to protect intellectual property is fundamental to any developed economy. An alternative to doing away with patents would be to look at compulsory licensing on FRAND terms. This would stop large companies filing and shelving ideas and using IP as a means to blog innovation. Instead, they would be forced to licence their IP to allow others to use it too, fostering competition and innovation while ensuring a fair reward for being the first to develop the idea.

[@ViceCoin]

1% profit on $billions:(

[@666yaoz]

Short patents are the best. Probably just 5 years

[@Zaft_K]

The presenter does not understand that patents, copyrights, and trademarks are different things.

[@jacquie212]

Increase tax on profits, while making all R&D a tax credit (as opposed to a tax deduction). Without giving it too much thought it should creatna natural price ceiling, but would be disincentive research on low barrier to entry products (generic medicines or copies)

[@kaelju]

Very interesting! I would love to hear about creative Commons!

[@twerkingfish4029]

Next week on VisualEconomik: why having electricity is bad, actually.

[@LuisRomeroLopez]

9:20 "Pattents are monopolizing knowledge". I'm not sure how to feel about giving all that weight to pattens (even to consider them a key factor in stagnation), but that's a good argument.

[@michaelrenper796]

This time guys you were carried toitally carried away by ideology. Should have asked a few engineers first. AND you made the carnal sin of conflating copyrights and patents. Very diffrent beast. You can't be serious here. 1) Patents in general work pretty well. At least in engineering they are absolutely essential to drive innovation. 2) Software patents are a big issue. Mostly because the concept of "technical process" applied is a perversion of the way its done in engineering. But this is particular to the software industry. 3) Pharmaceutical developement has a lot of issues. Mostly about research not focused in areas where it would provide most public benefit. This has all todo with the people who are being to benefit are not the ones with the deepest pockets. This has nothign to do with patents. Simply with making money available from the public to reward those innovations.

[@JustaReadingguy]

In the electronics business, things are far more complex. For example Smirnoff labs only exists to generate IP and they live off the royalties. They use other manufacturers to help develop their designs and license it to other designs companies that use the same manufacturers. Then they go to many manufacturers and develop IP there and repeat. Also large companies that hold large IP portfolios often barter with other companies to use each other's patents. No cost to the respective companies but they all have benefit at no cost. And the industry benefits by the IP being spread widely. Lastly, people actually do the inventions. If a company would not benefit much then very little benefit would go to the talented people (like a percentage of sales in the host company, but no in the out sourced company) and then why do it? Very complex problem.

[@stormiewutzke4190]

I think it depends on the industry. In the case of music copying has really harmed overall quality. I think the most important thing is that there is some way to protect and encourage people to create. Whenever large bases of power begin to protect access rather than simply distribute we will have less overall.

[@mintakan003]

I'm not sure about this. The software industry is very different from Pharma. R&D in biology and medicine is just so much harder than writing software. The failure rate is just so much higher. There is also the cost, and long time span, of clinical trials. Maybe instead of broad brushstroke stances about patents, we should look at an industry by industry case. There are also other related issues, such as patent trolling. Also, in the case of government (citizen) funded research, whether a company can have exclusive rights, e.g. case with Moderna, when there were multiple contributors, including public research.

[@katm9877]

Nitpick: there is no such thing as "unneeded drugs", only those that were unnecessarily r&d'd as you clarified a sentence or two later. After all, it's a good thing that we can buy a drug with a specific substance Y from companies A, Z and W. If one goes under, you can still purchase the other two. The reason why Red Hat made money and the copycats didn't is their support. They offered tech support (especially to enterprise users) so people paid so that they'd have the support instead of having to google for solutions. And now back to the topic of patents/copyrights. They can literally lead to the "goods" becoming unavailable. I am a huge RPG/fantasy nerd and many late 80s to late 90s books are simply unavailable. Publisher went under and/or author died and the book can NOT be legally found anywhere. Sometimes the book can be found but for humongous prices abroad because it was never published in my country (I don't mean translated, I mean published at ALL). Similarly the copyrights can have a stifling effect - I am a translator and many of my friends are translators. The usual way is for the publisher to realize they want to translate to language X and look for translators. Say what happens if someone is a translator to X and wants to translate the book? He has to contact whoever owns the rights (it's not an easy thing) AND in 99% of cases, the entity will say "not profitable enough" and the book will never be translated to X unless the entity is the one to come up with the idea...

[@bleedingdog]

It's all a biiiit... shortsighted. Patents can hinder competition and creativity... but so is lack of it. Simple invention you made in your free time is something not very harmful. Unjust, sure, but not really tragic. Invention that required 20 years of work of 10 000 people and costed 1 trillion dollars just needs to pay back. And somebody who just copied it is simply stealing from you. Maybe they can improve on it, maybe they can do it cheaper. Maybe. But if they base it all on a fraud than you can be sure the original company will NEVER again invest so much money into R&D. Why even bother? Soon we are going to have the original invention perfected but the next invention will just never come.

[@reubengeorge2514]

Reduce the validity period to 24 months or something. Limit the bonus to executives and spend the remainder as R&D.

[@MarcaoPT]

I was extremely adamant that patents were necessary for the pharmaceutical industry otherwise companies would not be willing to bear the risk of funding expensive research without some guarantee of having their breakthroughs protected by patents for at least a few years. This video has really challenged my reasoning with very valid arguments and now I have completely changed my perspective. That is the greatest added value that channels as VisualEconomik and VisualPolitik bring to viewers. By seeing other perspectives on these sensitive topics we learn a lot and become more aware of how these things work. Hats off to the VisualEconomik and VisualPolitik team! Keep up the great work!

[@baronbrummbar8691]

i wouldn.t change anythink ....... i say creat a world organisation that Buys key Patents and makes them free to use

[@Alexantey]

Don't patents kinda help boost technology by having to search alternatives

[@rene291]

u forgot to mention that android itself is open source

[@Trustmage]

those teeth :D

[@nietur]

5:38 Without patents, not even 25% would go to new drugs.

[@HumanAction76]

Your example for authors is out dated. The publishing industry has changed so much because of digital that "first to market" is no longer a revenue generator. Protecting an author's copyright is necessary. Now, the current Life + 90(?) is way too long. Copyright should be for the author's life only.

[@mbathroom1]

3rd

[@jigpig4140]

22nd

[@newhoggy]

Your video claims the fact that 80% of patents created in the pharmaceutical companies are trying to design treatments for the same disease to work around patents by other companies is bad, but I don't necessary think this is true. Different people react to the same drugs differently. If there is only one drug available for each disease and someone discovers they are intolerant or allergic or non-responsive to that drug they will end up having no viable alternative treatment. At least when there are multiple drugs for the same disease, a patient can find alternative treatments to work around this problem.

[@aethellstan]

so you're saying lets have a free for all where everyone leeches off other peoples hard work and inspiration, bit like china?

[@haoxus9413]

Thanks for spreading misinformation!

[@Robis9267]

I am seriously concerned about this channel shift to the communism

[@mikeypaulong1345]

Then go to china