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JulianMorrison comments on The Tragedy of the Anticommons - Less Wrong
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Comments (47)
Repeal the concept of patents. They aren't property, they're anti-property, a variety of special authorization to extort, no different in principle from the pre-Gandhi salt monopoly in India.
It seems obvious that current patent laws are too strong/bad for business, but the concept of patents does serve the useful purpose of encouraging innovation, even as they prevent innovators from actually going through with it.
There has to be a spot where the laws reach an optimum between encouragement and prevention, and it would be very surprising if it's at zero.
There is a suggestion in this article about how prices for patents could be set by the market without the anti-competitive downsides of current patent law. Like most of Landsburg's stuff, I'm not sure I agree with all of it, there are some flaws which seem likely to undermine the main case, but it's certainly not a ridiculous suggestion.
The Georgist idea seems to have a place here.
For both land and patents, let the owners float the properties in the market and price it themselves. They will be taxed based on the value that they themselves place on the patent/property.
If the usage is truly efficient, they wouldn't mind paying the tax. If it is not, then they themselves will mark down their property/patent value, thus allowing others to buy them out.
Ofcourse, the hidden assumption here is that the government is the real property owner (of all properties in its borders) at all time, which in a de-facto sense is true today, even if it may not be true de-jure. (If the government came to grab your property, would you really have any option against them?)
I wouldn't say you need to repeal patents entirely. Just limit them better, and enforce those limitations. Same with copyrights.
So how do you create an incentive for a company to do private research and development?