>if...anyone of us came up with a phenomenal idea worth billions, and some company produced exactly the same thing in 6 months, we'd be pretty pissed about that.
Only since we're conditioned to the current environment where patents play a role. If I know very well that anyone could copy the idea readily, then perhaps it wasn't ever worth billions to me. But maybe it is a little hard to copy, or at least takes some time to implement well. Then I have a first-mover advantage that's worth something. And of course the really tough-to-copy items can possibly net me those billions.
I think removing patents from the equation would result in everything settling to a new norm. Maybe that results in some ideas/investments not being pursued because they are then considered too risky. But you've also just removed a huge tax across the entire R&D process--for everyone. Perhaps that offsets the abandoned inventions.
It probably won't happen in my lifetime to that degree, but I think we'd be better off the further we move in that direction.
> I think removing patents from the equation would result in everything settling to a new norm.
I don't disagree. But the only way we, and Apple, and anyone else can operate right now, is under the current system. If you're not willing to work within the current system, you're not going to do well.
Of course, that's not to say we all shouldn't be investing energy into a new system, but you have to use what you've got when you've got it.
There are tons of ideas that are really hard to come up with originally but really really easy to copy. This is one of the reasons patents exist. Saying that any idea that can be easily copied is not worth anything is ludicrous.
Only since we're conditioned to the current environment where patents play a role. If I know very well that anyone could copy the idea readily, then perhaps it wasn't ever worth billions to me. But maybe it is a little hard to copy, or at least takes some time to implement well. Then I have a first-mover advantage that's worth something. And of course the really tough-to-copy items can possibly net me those billions.
I think removing patents from the equation would result in everything settling to a new norm. Maybe that results in some ideas/investments not being pursued because they are then considered too risky. But you've also just removed a huge tax across the entire R&D process--for everyone. Perhaps that offsets the abandoned inventions.
It probably won't happen in my lifetime to that degree, but I think we'd be better off the further we move in that direction.