Bonum Certa Men Certa

Scholars Michele Boldrin, Juan Correa Allamand, David K. Levine, and Carmine Ornaghi Suggest Abolishing All Patents

Summary: Trade constraints are being compared to patent monopolies, arguing that they impede productivity, creativity, and innovation

OVER at the FFII's mailing lists, Geza found some new papers that summarise recent research work. He says "there's a brief article in the Atlantic, highlighting a working paper by Michele Boldrin and David Levine (Washington University in St. Louis), making the case (based on economic arguments) that our societies and economies would fare best if the patent system would be abolished completely."



The article is good because the key arguments are succinct, enumerated, and well argued. Some central quotes that Geza shares are as follows:

- "The case against patents can be summarized briefly: there is no empirical evidence that they serve to increase innovation and productivity, unless the latter is identified with the number of patents awarded -- which, as evidence shows, has no correlation with measured productivity." (p1)

- "A closer look at the historical and international evidence suggests that while weak patent systems may mildly increase innovation with limited side-effects, strong patent systems retard innovation with many negative side-effects. Both theoretically and empirically, the political economy of government operated patent systems indicates that weak legislation will generally evolve into a strong protection and that the political demand for stronger patent protection comes from old and stagnant industries and firms, not from new and innovative ones. Hence the best solution is to abolish patents entirely through strong constitutional measures and to find other legislative instruments, less open to lobbying and rent-seeking, to foster innovation whenever there is clear evidence that laissez-faire under-supplies it." (p1)

- "In less than thirty years, the flow of patents roughly quadrupled. By contrast, neither innovation nor R&D expenditure have exhibited any particular upwards trend, not to speak of factor productivity." (p6)

- "Abolishing patents may seem “pie-in-the-sky” and there are certainly many interim measures that can be taken to mitigate the damage: properly interpreting obviousness, requiring genuine disclosure of working methods and an independent invention defense against patent infringement are useful and - among economists - relatively uncontroversial measures. But why use a band-aid to staunch a major wound? Economists fought for decades - and ultimately with great success – to abolish trade restrictions. It will not escape the careful reader that patents are very much akin to trade restrictions as they prevent the free entry of competitors in national markets, thereby reducing the growth of productive capacity and slowing down economic growth. The same way that trade restrictions were progressively reduced until reaching (almost complete) abolition, a similar (albeit, hopefully less slow) approach should be adopted to “get rid” of patents." (p21)

The FFII folks found an extended paper. It says:

Because policy proposals are better digested and metabolized when served in the form of small pills, here is our list of small reforms that could be easily implemented.

(1) Stop the rising tide that, since the early 1980s, is both extending the set of “things” that can be patented and shifting the legal and judicial balance more and more in favor of patent’s holders.

(2) Because competition fosters productivity growth, anti-trust and competition policies should be seen as a key tool to foster innovation. This is of particular relevance for high tech sectors, from software to bioengineering, to medical products and pharmaceuticals.

(3) Free trade is a key part of competition policies hence the role that WTO-WIPO-TRIPS play should be redefined to move away from the current neo-mercantilist approach toward free trade in goods and ideas. The aim here should be that of stopping the policy of exporting our intellectual policy laws towards other countries while adopting a policy of exporting free trade and competition in innovation. This seems an urgent goal because, within a couple of decades, the “balance of trade in ideas” between US+EU and Asia may easily reverse. At that point the temptation to engage in “mercantilism of ideas” may well affect the now developing Asian countries, leading to a general increase in IP protection worldwide.

(4) Cross industry variation in the importance of patents suggests we may want to start tailoring patent’s length and breadth to different sectorial needs. Substantial empirical work needs to be done to implement this properly, even if there already exists a vast legal literature pointing in this direction.

(5) Reversing the burden of proof: patents should be allowed only when monopoly power is justified by evidence about fixed costs and actual lack of appropriability. The operational model should be that of “regulated utilities”: patents to be awarded only when strictly needed on economic grounds. This requires reforming the USPO, which is urgently needed in any case.

(6) Prizes and competition. An interesting approach is that of operating to change the role that the NSF and the NIH play in fostering innovation. The basic goal, in this case, is that of reversing the principle according to which federally financed investigation can lead to private patents. As a first step we would advocating going back to the old rule according to which the results of federally subsidized research cannot lead to the creation of new private monopolies but should be available to all market participants. This reform would be particularly useful for the pharmaceutical industry.

(7) With regards to the latter, we advocate reforming pharmaceutical regulation to either treat stage II and III clinical trials as public goods (to be financed by NIH on a competitive basis) or by allowing the commercialization (at regulated prices equal to the economic costs) of drugs that satisfy the FDA requirements for safety even if they do not yet satisfy the current, over-demanding, requisites forproving efficacy. It is ensuring the efficacy—not the safety—of drugs that is most expensive, time consuming and difficult. All the usual mechanisms of ensuring the safety of drugs would remain firmly in place. While pharmaceutical companies would be requested to sell new drugs at “economic cost” until efficacy is proved, they could start selling at market prices after that. In this way, companies would face strong incentives to conduct or fund appropriate efficacy studies where they deem the potential market for such drugs to be large enough to bear the additional costs. At the same time this “progressive” approval system would give cures for rare diseases the fighting chance they currently do not have. This solution would substantially reduce the risks and cost of developing new drugs.

(8) If this progressive approval approach works for rare diseases, there is no reason is should not be adopted across the board. The current system favors a small number of blockbuster drugs that can be sold to millions of patients. The coming revolution in medicine will rely on carefully targeting hundreds or even thousands of drugs to the correct patients. But lawmakers must first usher in a new system that makes developing these precision treatments possible. The regulation reform we are suggesting would be a first important step to achieve such goal.


"Finally," writes a reader, "software patents are a particularly egregious and bad form of intellectual property for a sector where we also have very detailed micro evidence about the role of patents in (not) promoting innovation (see, e.g., Bessen and Meurer 2008 and references therein). The same arguments are likely to apply tobio-engineering and genetic research at large. The goal of policy, in these cases, should be just that of slowly but surely decreasing the strength of intellectual property interventions."

"I find the target of abolishing all patents very appealing," writes Geza. "Let business methods, software, and genetic patents go first, but make sure that we get rid of the whole system in the end.

"I like their way of phrasing the case for abolishing patents as being in favor of "free trade in ideas" and "de-regulating creativity": that's a new angle in the debate that should make it possible to convince some free-trades and market-liberals that supporting the patent system is not consistent with their basic assumptions as it means supporting government interference..."

Finally, people should realise that not only the USPTO is a friend of monopolies and not of the common man, unless he (or she for a woman) is a patent lawyer. Universities help support this strong allegation that can empower society by moving it forward, well past patents.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Rejecting 'Snoop-Phones' and Turning "Old" Phones (or Tablets) Into Freedom-Respecting Appliances
Paul Fernhout (pdfernhout.net) wrote back to Akira Urushibatathis this past weekend
Apple is the Company of Dictators and Worse
Apple is just another greedy corporation in search of sweatshops and even pedophiles (especially the high-profile ones)
Counting Unhatched Eggs Is Not Counting Chickens
Everything here will persist as normal
The "Infinite Bread"
The biblical story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has software parallels
In Many Cases and in Many Different Ways, Technology Became Less Durable and Less Reliable Over Time
The "modern" things are more complex. And complexity is a foe or reliability and repair-ability.
Microsoft's LinkedIn is Losing Money, Traffic, and Hope; Now It Wants to Sell Its Users' Lifeblood (and Data)
Let this be a reminder of what social control media really is about
Microsoft Lunduke: Freedom of Speech Means Spreading What I Have to Say and Banning People I Disagree With
4Chan is one he aims for and he is siccing 4Chan trolls at people he doesn't like
 
Richard Stallman is Having a Good Week Already (Stallman Was Right About 'Clown Computing')
That alone is worth bringing up in his talk
An Update About Soylent News, With Jan Rinok "Back in the Saddle"
Burnout or "near burnout" a possibility when having to curate abuse
When Prominent GNU/Linux Distros Are Run by Spies
What has Microsoft Canonical become?
More Publishers and Companies Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux", Not "Linux"
It's not to see InstallAware saying GNU/Linux this week
Google News is Now Promoting a Parasitic Slopfarm Called "findarticles.com", Where Plagiarism of "Linux" Articles is Rampant
Does Google even care about the slop epidemic? Google itself is a vendor of slop now (and it calls it "Gemini")
Gemini Links 20/10/2025: Pumpkin Carving, "Hey Hi", and Other Buzzwords
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Google News Promoting Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
What is the value of Google News if so many results in it are fake 'articles?
Our Uptime This Year Was Better Than AWS (Also a Lot Cheaper)
We never used "the cloud"
Amazon Web Shenanigans
An ongoing, experimental endeavour
Death of Elias Diem: FSFE mailing list archives hidden
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/10/2025: Louvre Museum Reveals Weakness, About 7 Million Protest US Turning Into Oligarchy/Monarchy
Links for the day
They Should Have Listened to Techrights Over a Month Earlier (Xubuntu Site Compromised)
we reported this issue about 40 days earlier and nobody did anything about it
Richard Stallman to Give Another Talk Today in Bavaria (Bavarian Academy of Science)
Tomorrow at 6 PM he speaks in Munich
Barry Kauler Explains That Puppy Linux and EasyOS Exclude Systemd to Keep Things Simple
Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux is in the community's hands. He now focuses on EasyOS and more.
Half a Year After Brian Fagioli Got Kicked Out of BetaNews for Slop He's Still Doing LLM Slop and Slop Images Targeting 'Linux' (Plagiarising Original Works)
If the Web gets polluted or flooded by slopfarms such as these, and Slashdot then sends traffic so these slopfarms (Slashdot probably doesn't do this intentionally), then real writers with real knowledge of GNU/Linux will lose the spark for publishing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 19, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 19, 2025
Campaign of FUD Against Framework Laptops and GNU/Linux (Using Microsoft's Attack on Linux, 'Secure Boot')
Ritual Defamation Cult has turned its attention over to Framework
Liberation From 'The Feed'
They rank things based on the editor's choice/ideology (he or she knows the sponsors, hence the masters)
Microsoft's Killing of Vista 10 Seems to Have Resulted in More Articles About GNU/Linux (But Also FUD)
We not only saw a rise in traffic, we also saw a remarkable rise in the number of articles
Today (a Day Before Richard Stallman Talk at TUM) There's a Patent Propaganda Event at TUM
Perhaps an opportunity for Dr. Stallman to rebut this "invention to patent" nonsense/fantasy (conflating monopolies with innovation)
OpenSource or "Open Source" as a Brand is Dying, Let's Get Back to Talking About Software Freedom
Those of us who actually want to reform the industry and put users in control of their systems/devices will recognise that "Open Source" was selling a lie or got-co-opted by liars
19 Years in Numbers: Techrights' Anniversary Countdown and Retrospective
In 2019 we began improving our workflows and, accordingly/predictably, we became a lot more productive
Slop Turns People Off (LLMs Lack Intelligence, They're Just Plagiarism Powerhouses That Fail to Deliver Any Real, Measurable Value)
"More" (or "MOAR") isn't always better
IBM Red Hat Has Re-calibrated or Adjusted to Bubble Economics, False Promises, and Slop/Plagiarism
This won't end well
Fake Numbers, Fake Claims, Fake Economy, and Media Grifters That Prop Up Fraud
Grifters like The Register MS won't be looked upon kindly after the bubble implodes
For Some, the GNU Web Site is Not Accessible This Week
They seem to have gone into some kind of lock-down mode
Richard Stallman Back at the "Rudolf-Diesel" Hörsal "MW 2001" in About 40 Hours
He spoke there before; there's a very high seating capacity there
Symptoms of Upcoming Microsoft Layoffs in XBox
A crashing franchise
Psychiatrist confession: Germanwings crash & Debian toxic culture recognized before suicides
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/10/2025: Scentjacking 101, Slop Hype Boosters, and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Slopwatch: The Serial Slopper, LinuxSecurity, and Google News
Let's hope slopfarms die as soon as possible
Links 19/10/2025: Cambodia Scam Centres, Slop Hurting Wikipedia Traffic
Links for the day
As Economies Crumble Free as in Beer Will Matter, Not Just Free as in Freedom/Libre (Libertad)
French regions choosing to embrace Software Freedom
25 Years Ago, an Explanation of How Reducing Free Software to 'Apps' Would Interfere With Freedom Goals
there's nothing unreasonable about it
A List of 63 Known Gemini Clients (Software to Browse Geminispace Content With Gemini Protocol)
Not counting browser plugins for Web browsers
Gemini Links 19/10/2025: "Firma Odin Is Transforming" and Bot Attacks While "AFK"
Links for the day
US Government: 6.1% of Site Visitors Use GNU/Linux
GNU/Linux has a considerable share and it is growing
LLM Slop Could Not Rise to Prominence Without Media Complicity and Artificial Hype
Inane garbage disguised as "journalism"
Why the FSF No Longer Recommends Debian, as Explained by Richard Stallman This Month
some weeks ago
All the Latest Half Dozen Articles by Mehedi Hasan (UbuntuPIT) Only Admit at the End That He's Using LLM Slop
Disclosure is OK, but the practice of using slop is not
The 'Modern' Web of Fake Security and Easy Censorship of Whole Domains
Each year it gets worse
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 18, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 18, 2025