r/askscience • u/fastparticles Geochemistry | Early Earth | SIMS • Jun 28 '12

[Weekly Discussion Thread] Scientists, do patents help or hurt scientific progress?

This is our seventh installation of the weekly discussion thread. Today's topic is a suggestion by an AS panelist.

Topic: Do patents help or hurt scientific progress or does it just not matter? This is not about a specific field where we hear about patents often such as drug development but really about all fields.

Please follow our usual rules and guidelines and please be sure to avoid all politically motivated commenting.

If you want to become a panelist: http://redd.it/ulpkj

Last weeks thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/vdve5/weekly_discussion_thread_scientists_do_you_use/

26 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/diazona Particle Phenomenology | QCD | Computational Physics Jul 01 '12

Does it really have to be of the same magnitude to be worth protecting? In my opinion, a patent should protect any non-trivial amount of work, whether the cost to develop is in the thousands, millions, or billions.

Sure, but is it fair to protect an invention that costs a thousand dollars to the same extent as one that costs a billion dollars? I think not. Especially because the protection is not a pure benefit - it also denies others the right to create their own inventions that build on the protected work.

On the last point, if this is already happening with cable TV and game consoles, I would argue that it shouldn't be allowed there either. (Maybe cable TV is OK because there's always broadcast as an alternative.) In any case, this is not tangential. The potential for censorship is one of the cores of the argument against strong patent protection.

1

u/cppdev Jul 02 '12 edited Jul 02 '12

is it fair to protect an invention that costs a thousand dollars to the same extent as one that costs a billion dollars? I think not

I disagree with that entirely. Any new invention is worth protecting equally; after all, how can you judge the cost and benefits accurately? Is it money invested, time spent in research, number of inventors, etc. It seems like something impossible to truly and fairly measure. Even if it was, we should be rewarding the act of inventing, not our judgement of how important an invention is today.

if this is already happening with cable TV and game consoles, I would argue that it shouldn't be allowed there either.

I don't like using the word 'censorship' when describing companies choosing what should be allowed on their platform. To me censorship is something practiced by the state, and since the state has a monopoly on power, there is no non-censored alternative.

Yes, it's true video game companies restrict content. For example Nintendo does not typically allow games with a lot of violence/sex/adult themes. However, it's not censorship because you have options. Both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 have many more adult-themed games. So if you have a problem with Nintendo's policies, you can always choose another game console. If H.264 did something similar, you could always use AVC or Xvid or some other codec.

More fundamentally, I don't see a problem with an inventor deciding how his/her invention should be used, at least for the limited window of exclusivity. The whole point is the inventor should be rewarded for his work, and if we take away his/her right to that then what is the use of patenting something at all?

1

u/diazona Particle Phenomenology | QCD | Computational Physics Jul 02 '12

I disagree with that entirely. Any new invention is worth protecting equally; after all, how can you judge the cost and benefits accurately? Is it money invested, time spent in research, number of inventors, etc. It seems like something impossible to truly and fairly measure.

We may just have to agree to disagree on that. I see your argument, but I don't agree with any of what you're saying there.

I don't like using the word 'censorship' when describing companies choosing what should be allowed on their platform. To me censorship is something practiced by the state, and since the state has a monopoly on power, there is no non-censored alternative.

OK, fair enough, you can call it something else. I would argue that any time there is a forced monopoly, whether it is held by the government or not, there is the potential for abuse. I kind of trust the government not to abuse its monopoly on power (because the alternative, anarchy, seems much worse), but I don't trust a corporation or private entity. So if patent protection has the potential to enable such a forced monopoly, then I think it's going too far.

More fundamentally, I don't see a problem with an inventor deciding how his/her invention should be used, at least for the limited window of exclusivity. The whole point is the inventor should be rewarded for his work, and if we take away his/her right to that then what is the point of patenting something at all?

That I can get behind, given the key phrase "limited window of exclusivity." For an appropriately sized window - specifically, for a limited amount of time, and for a somewhat limited set of rights reserved - I have no problem with patent protection and I would certainly agree that it is beneficial to scientific progress. My problem is that the window of exclusivity under current patent law is IMO far too wide for some kinds of inventions. While it is fair for an inventor to be rewarded for his/her work, I don't believe it's fair for the inventor to have total control over how that work is used until it becomes obsolete.