Patents trademarks, IP laws violate 1st amendment

Am I the only one here who sees this kind of disgusting welfare for the rich to be a travesty to the free market? It’s allowing the wealthy to hoard more and more wealth, and even worse, turn around and buy up their competition. It’s disgusting over reach by the government and stifles competition. Every indicator of wealth inequality is showing how badly the government is screwing us over. At best patents, IP laws, trademarks etc should only be allowed for small inventors. And only for a limited time while their net worth is below a certain limit. It’s hardcore communism and violates the 1a to such a massive and extreme fashion that it’s laughable.

Let’s discuss

So it's somehow an extreme form of capitalism by rich megacorporations, digusting government overreach AND hardcore communism at the same time? Interesting.

The Constitution itself gives Congress the power to regulate copyright/trademark.

its not capitalism if you need a government to make and prop up specific laws and courts to up hold it. Its communism disguised as capitalism.

Do you even know what a trademark is?

@blaznwiipspman1: I think you'd find more interest in this topic if you had more data, empirical evidence, and refined arguments. May I recommend developing these by reading some work by economists who share your concerns on the patent system such as Dean Baker?

It's literally in Article One of the Constitution.

Yes, the system needs to be refined to modern times but, it's absolutely not a violation of anyones rights or, communism, or government overreach.

Quite the contrary, countries that err on the side of communist, with large amounts of what we would consider government overreach, are also the ones with the least respect for patent laws or intellectual property.

I think a reasonable argument can be made that the current rules provide a little too much insulation from competition for too long.

But that doesn't mean the world should just abandon the concepts and create a free for all as that would just lead to a huge set of other problems.

Your shtick on this was boring years ago. Add something of value, like some insights into potential improvements instead of just frothing at the mouth statements that amount to: 'bad, bad, bad'.

I will troll an example that I think is broken. I think drug companies receive too much protection for too long, especially in the US. The basic tradeoff as I see it:

Companies will argue that bringing new drugs to market is very expensive. I will argue that 50% of that cost is marketing and sales, not R&D, which can be seen in the financial statements of US drug companies. This reflects the general insanity of not having single buyers and keeping the system private.

Second, the practical effects of new drugs on society is much less than the effect of all existing drugs on society. This is because lifespans are quite long, modern medicine is highly effective, and most new drugs are aimed at edge cases affecting very small numbers of the population. On the latter, this is shown in extraordinary large costs for new drugs aimed at ultra rare conditions.

The tradeoff then becomes extraordinary costs for extremely rare conditions, which if eliminated/reduced, will lead to very poor quality of life (or death), for a very small number of people vs accessibility/affordability for far more drugs by far more people leading to better quality of life (or avoiding early death) for them.

Personally, I feel that the US drug policies sacrifice the majority for the sake of the drug companies, which is feebly justified by the drug companies on the grounds of cost for R&D related to new drugs. I like to point out that 50% of their cost is sales and marketing to begin with, which is driven by the brand protection they receive in the first place in an asymmetric medical information market...ie: not a free market.

@SUD123456: Oddly, you used one of the few examples in which I think scrapping the (drug) patent system could be a good idea, instead simply funding the R&D directly. But that has more to do with the uncompetitive nature of the healthcare market overall than the patent system generally.

As the owner ( well, my employer technically is, but my name is on them ) of several patents and knowing the work that goes into developing and securing them I don't share your opinion on the system. Protection in some form for some amount of time must be afforded inventors who put in sometimes considerable time and resources into their developments. To have a less innovative competitor simply reverse engineer / copy an idea to undercut sales is unfair and I think erodes the willingness to take inventive risks.

Having said that, I do think the system is in need of overhaul. I think USPTO examiners are highly overworked and may not have sufficient expertise of subject matter to come to correct judgements. I think that too many ideas that don't fall under the criteria of novelty, usefulness, and non-obviousness can end up patented by over-zealous businesses seeking to build large IP portfolios to fight competitors with. You can see this in the absolute ballooning of the number of software patents granted in the last 15 years. Something like 65% of all patents granted in the US now are for software.

But again, when examiners have an endless stream of applications and less time to commit to each, this result is unsurprising.

@comp_atkins: Aw, I only have one under my belt.

#LifeGoals

I can see how people with skin in the game would think otherwise. But like I said in my first post, it should be ok to allow small time inventors to have some time limited patents until they reach a certain net wealth. Large corporations with billions of dollars in profits yearly, should not receive such protections, its simply a travesty.

Having such communist patent protections is a blessing, and should never have been allowed to such an extreme extent as we have now. It is literally a butchering of the 1a in every single way you look at it.

We can all agree that wealth inequality has shifted significantly to the wealthy, and the main reason for that is patents and so called "intellectual property". The wealthy abuse the patents which the government and courts grant them (because its not naturally part of the free market), then they gather up wealth, and whenever a competitor pops up they buy them out. Its a travesty, and can't be allowed to continue the way things are.

I thought you were a conservative, and pro free market anti communist. I'm dissapointed. Respecting patent laws or intellectual property goes against free market, goes against the 1a, and its certainly not any real form of free market capitalism.

ok, thats not a bad idea to look at more data. But alot of it is just nonsense anyway. We all know the damage patents, and IP laws are causing to the economy. Our economy now more than ever is knowledge based, and a few companies having private access to something like ideas has caused more wealth inequality than ever before in human history. Do you disagree with that basic concept??

good post. its true that we need to work on an alternatives, but in the case of drugs, I personally think the R&D, clinical trials and sales should all be done by colleges in partnership with government. Its like you said, fringe drugs being developed by private corporations who are focused on pure profit is a conflict of interest.

@blaznwiipspman1: Sorry, handwaving away concerns about actual data doesn't fly. Take SUD's advice and make more informed nuanced arguments. There's data to support your viewpoints (whether I agree with you or not). I'd be interested in pursuing more informed discussions on the matter because its an underserved area.

So government has control over all development of drugs? Do you have any idea how detrimental that would actually be to the development of new drugs? We just had government force experimental drugs developed by private corporations who are focused on pure profit, how does even more government involvement help?

nope, I said colleges should handle it all, government handle the logistics and distribution, and some funding as needed. Universities and colleges would then run it like a private corp would. Theyd make the sales and profits minus any funding. Government isn't good at anything, let alone making drugs.

I think a tiered IP protection system where protection is based on the wealth of the entity owning the patent just invites chaos in trying to regulate it. I also don't see how with that system, or the removal of patents altogether you would not have the same problems you're lamenting now where a large entity can simply buy up a smaller competitor.

If that is your beef, I think the focus should not be on the IP system, but rather enforcement of anti-monopoly laws.

How is this not a troll thread?

of all the terrible threads made in the pol gamers, this is probably one of the most legit ones.

I'm no expert, but my understanding is that communism, especially "extreme communism", wouldn't allow for private ownership of intellectual property.

Intellectual property is an inherently capitalist idea. It turns ideas into commodities that can be sold for a profit, and protects those profits by preventing other people from using that idea. Even if the idea is something that would benefit society (e.g. the fornula for some new medicine), intellectual property ensures megacorporations triumph over the common good.

That seems completely incompatible with communism. In a communist society, you'd create something and be rewarded for its creation, but then the rest of society would be able to freely benefit from what you created.

To put it another way - Disney is the champion and key influencer of intellectual property laws. If what you're saying it true, then Disney must be "extremely communist" - which is obviously incorrect.

So if you feel corporations shouldn't be able to hoard IP, and IP should be freely available to anyone, you're basically taking a pro-communist, anti-capitalist stance.

@Planeforger: yes the concept of property is capitalist, but ideas aren’t property unless the government and courts say it is. It is a massive violation of the 1a. How does that hypocritism square away with you? People will lie to themselves and convince themselves of anything. Tomorrow the government could also make a law that air is private property. Would you then call it capitalist too?

Disney isn't technically communist, not on the surface anyway. They operate on capitalist principles. However if you dig a little deeper, the story is much different. Their agents petitioned the lawmakers, and members of congress to pass certain beneficial laws that would make it easier for them to do business, so that the business environment is much more favorable towards them. In that case, with such government support, isn't that communist? Imagine hoards of poor people asking for welfare money. What is the difference between them, and what Disney is doing, by asking the government to protect their "business interests" from real free market competition. Is that socialism?? Its the very definition of communism. But in this case, its reverse communism, instead of government using wealth to benefit wider society, they use government to enrich a single corporation.

On your last point again, you have some deeply ingrained belief that IP or patents are property. You would be right that I would be taking a pro communist stance, but thats only if you consider patents and IP to be real property. I don't see it that way. I don't see ideas themselves as anything that should be property. I understand that smaller inventors need some protections, but there is no reason for a multi national trillion dollar companies to receive such training wheels of protection. This is COMMUNISMmy friend.

It was balanced by being limited by time.

Then along came Disney.

indeed...you have to ask..is it really capitalism anymore when you write your own rules to the game??

It's definitely not communism.

A lot (almost all) basic R&D for pharmaceuticals for many years has been funded by the government. A lot of those drugs have proven incredibly effective in treating health problems and saving lives. There is little issue with the government having "control"--it's not really control, it's more like they make a request and companies fulfill it--it's with the end-user being abused.

However, they are prohibitively (and unreasonably) expensive without insurance, and often hard to get approval for as a result even with insurance.

The issue is capitalism and the government falling short in regulations. In other words, the idea that there is too much regulation is laughable; we need more.

It makes little sense for taxpayers to pay for R&D of new drugs, but to then have to pay for those drugs too. And don't tell me the solution is to stop funding drug research 😋 Obviously we should pay, in one form or another, for pharmaceuticals; we shouldn't have to pay twice, however.