Why Do Patents Tend To Cause More Harm Than Good?
Date : 03 20 2008 Category : Business
Techdirt
Continuing my series of posts on some of the basics behind intellectual property, I wanted to delve further into the discussion I kicked off last week about judging the harm vs. benefit of intellectual property, and being able to properly balance the two. As we pointed out last week, nearly all of the economic evidence shows that patents tend to do more harm than good. Researchers James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer (perfect timing again) have gone into a little more detail as to how much damage is done, but I wanted to focus on why the downsides to patents are so often worse than the upsides.
At one level, it goes back to basic fundamental economics. Any given monopoly is going to be bad. There are economic rents associated with a monopoly. It limits the supply available and increases the cost, acting as a deadweight loss to society. That's absolutely true with patents as well (as much of the research has shown). However, there are a few more reasons why patents tend to be a net negative. First, let's focus on why the reasons in favor of patents aren't particularly strong.
The first is that it should act as an incentive to create the product. Yet, as the research has shown, that's almost never true in practice. More innovation tends to happen with weaker patent laws, and when stronger patent laws are put in place, the pace of innovation decreases. The reason is that real innovation almost never happens because of patents. Very few people invent stuff "to get a patent," but because there's a need in the market and they can help solve it. That's true with, or without, patents. Furthermore, it's that need in the market that is the real incentive for innovation. If you can serve a market, there's a way to make money from that market, and that acts as plenty of incentive.
The fears that an "easily copied" product will damage the original inventor are also wildly overblown. Study after study after study has shown that there is a distinct first mover advantage, and even things that are easily "copied" doesn't mean that the copycats get success in the market. People put a premium on buying from the original creator. Furthermore, they often believe (correctly in many cases) that the original creator has a better understanding of the market, and is likely to continue to innovate faster and with better solutions. Finally, in the worst case scenario, where a copycat is able to do a better job, that's also not a bad thing, because the societal benefit is still a better product. It's called competition, and is generally considered a good thing in a market economy.
Another popular claim is that patent benefit us via "disclosure." Because patents require the inventor to "disclose" the invention, the idea is that these patents will spur additional innovation as others learn from the patents and build on them. The idea is that there's obvious benefit in keeping the idea secret, so in exchange for disclosing the idea, the government gives the inventor a monopoly. However, this is easily shown to be false. First, very few patents these days are written to the point where they actually disclose enough to be useful. They tend to be broadly written in a way that can cover as much as possible. However, there's an even better simple logical rationale for why disclosure is a myth when it comes to patents. If the inventor truly believes there's tremendous value in keeping the idea secret, he or she will still keep it secret. There's no real benefit to disclosing it to get the patent. You get just as much benefit from keeping it secret. The only benefit is if you think that others will be able to figure out the same concept in less time than it takes for the patent to expire. In other words, if you realize that others will be able to come up with the same thing in that amount of time. So getting a patent prevents others from doing that. But if you truly believe that it would take longer than the length of the patent to figure out its secrets, then you'll keep it quiet anyway.
As for why the downsides to patents are almost always present, it's based on a fundamental understanding of how innovation works. If most innovation was a single burst of inspiration, then patents could make sense. However, in a scenario where innovation is an ongoing process of building, trying, adjusting, building, trying, adjusting -- then patents are likely to be harmful. They add a cost and a hassle at many of the steps along the way. They add a series of hurdles that involve time, money and effort for each step of that process. That, alone, significantly slows down innovation. Studies have shown, in fact, that most innovation is an ongoing series of innovations rather than a single burst of inspiration. Furthermore, great breakthroughs tend to come not from a single mind, but in different people looking at the same problem, learning from each other and building on each other's work. By throwing tollbooths into that process, you slow down the innovation.
Thus, the supposed benefits of patents rarely are all that beneficial, and yet the downsides to patents are quite large and show up quite often. So, it should be no surprise that the research shows patents tend to do quite a bit to slow down innovation, rather than accelerate it. Links to other posts in the series: On The Constitutional Reasons Behind Copyright And Patents Patents, Copyrights And Trademarks, Oh My! If Intellectual Property Is Neither Intellectual, Nor Property, What Is It? What Kind Of Progress Are We Promoting? Why Do Patents Tend To Cause More Harm Than Good?
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At one level, it goes back to basic fundamental economics. Any given monopoly is going to be bad. There are economic rents associated with a monopoly. It limits the supply available and increases the cost, acting as a deadweight loss to society. That's absolutely true with patents as well (as much of the research has shown). However, there are a few more reasons why patents tend to be a net negative. First, let's focus on why the reasons in favor of patents aren't particularly strong.
The first is that it should act as an incentive to create the product. Yet, as the research has shown, that's almost never true in practice. More innovation tends to happen with weaker patent laws, and when stronger patent laws are put in place, the pace of innovation decreases. The reason is that real innovation almost never happens because of patents. Very few people invent stuff "to get a patent," but because there's a need in the market and they can help solve it. That's true with, or without, patents. Furthermore, it's that need in the market that is the real incentive for innovation. If you can serve a market, there's a way to make money from that market, and that acts as plenty of incentive.
The fears that an "easily copied" product will damage the original inventor are also wildly overblown. Study after study after study has shown that there is a distinct first mover advantage, and even things that are easily "copied" doesn't mean that the copycats get success in the market. People put a premium on buying from the original creator. Furthermore, they often believe (correctly in many cases) that the original creator has a better understanding of the market, and is likely to continue to innovate faster and with better solutions. Finally, in the worst case scenario, where a copycat is able to do a better job, that's also not a bad thing, because the societal benefit is still a better product. It's called competition, and is generally considered a good thing in a market economy.
Another popular claim is that patent benefit us via "disclosure." Because patents require the inventor to "disclose" the invention, the idea is that these patents will spur additional innovation as others learn from the patents and build on them. The idea is that there's obvious benefit in keeping the idea secret, so in exchange for disclosing the idea, the government gives the inventor a monopoly. However, this is easily shown to be false. First, very few patents these days are written to the point where they actually disclose enough to be useful. They tend to be broadly written in a way that can cover as much as possible. However, there's an even better simple logical rationale for why disclosure is a myth when it comes to patents. If the inventor truly believes there's tremendous value in keeping the idea secret, he or she will still keep it secret. There's no real benefit to disclosing it to get the patent. You get just as much benefit from keeping it secret. The only benefit is if you think that others will be able to figure out the same concept in less time than it takes for the patent to expire. In other words, if you realize that others will be able to come up with the same thing in that amount of time. So getting a patent prevents others from doing that. But if you truly believe that it would take longer than the length of the patent to figure out its secrets, then you'll keep it quiet anyway.
As for why the downsides to patents are almost always present, it's based on a fundamental understanding of how innovation works. If most innovation was a single burst of inspiration, then patents could make sense. However, in a scenario where innovation is an ongoing process of building, trying, adjusting, building, trying, adjusting -- then patents are likely to be harmful. They add a cost and a hassle at many of the steps along the way. They add a series of hurdles that involve time, money and effort for each step of that process. That, alone, significantly slows down innovation. Studies have shown, in fact, that most innovation is an ongoing series of innovations rather than a single burst of inspiration. Furthermore, great breakthroughs tend to come not from a single mind, but in different people looking at the same problem, learning from each other and building on each other's work. By throwing tollbooths into that process, you slow down the innovation.
Thus, the supposed benefits of patents rarely are all that beneficial, and yet the downsides to patents are quite large and show up quite often. So, it should be no surprise that the research shows patents tend to do quite a bit to slow down innovation, rather than accelerate it. Links to other posts in the series: On The Constitutional Reasons Behind Copyright And Patents Patents, Copyrights And Trademarks, Oh My! If Intellectual Property Is Neither Intellectual, Nor Property, What Is It? What Kind Of Progress Are We Promoting? Why Do Patents Tend To Cause More Harm Than Good?
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