I don’t know if it is really worse in software than in other areas. I used to peruse the new patents column in an engineering publication on microwaves and other radio stuff. It appeared that almost all of them were reasonably clever but not amazingly clever solutions to very specific engineering problems. So rather than a really non-obvious new whatever, most patents in microwaves and RF were on solutions to narrow problems which any reasonably competent engineering department at a good company would have come up with.
Indeed, just the fact that important patents often come down to a race to develop and file should show that the thing being patented would be invented without much delay even if you prevented the top two or three groups from patenting it. I saw a fun play a number of years ago on the race to invent the television.
As to the economics of patents, sure the ability to get a monopoly on the patented technology motivates companies to get patents. I don’t know that it is obvious that the value created by motivating the inventions exceeds the value destroyed by granting monopolies. There are some amazing numbers where the increase in availability of phone service once the original telephone patent expired was so tremendous that it is hard to imagine society benefited much from keeping that valuable tool away from so many millions of people during the monopoly period. Indeed, unless the case can be made that the invention would not occur for at least another 20 years later, in the current world where the monopoly lasts 20 years it may be obvious that patents are value-destroying. Hmmm, that’s a clever way to think about it.
I don’t know if it is really worse in software than in other areas. I used to peruse the new patents column in an engineering publication on microwaves and other radio stuff. It appeared that almost all of them were reasonably clever but not amazingly clever solutions to very specific engineering problems. So rather than a really non-obvious new whatever, most patents in microwaves and RF were on solutions to narrow problems which any reasonably competent engineering department at a good company would have come up with.
Indeed, just the fact that important patents often come down to a race to develop and file should show that the thing being patented would be invented without much delay even if you prevented the top two or three groups from patenting it. I saw a fun play a number of years ago on the race to invent the television.
As to the economics of patents, sure the ability to get a monopoly on the patented technology motivates companies to get patents. I don’t know that it is obvious that the value created by motivating the inventions exceeds the value destroyed by granting monopolies. There are some amazing numbers where the increase in availability of phone service once the original telephone patent expired was so tremendous that it is hard to imagine society benefited much from keeping that valuable tool away from so many millions of people during the monopoly period. Indeed, unless the case can be made that the invention would not occur for at least another 20 years later, in the current world where the monopoly lasts 20 years it may be obvious that patents are value-destroying. Hmmm, that’s a clever way to think about it.