The US Intellectual Property Laws (IPR) laws are statutory laws enacted as a policy decision. They were at no time considered natural rights. By law they are legal rights, but not natural rights. Therefore, they are not inalienable.
There is nothing to support the claim that IPR fosters innovation. It may be true, but at no time in history, has anyone warranted that claim. With about 150 years of intensive practice we might have yielded proof, but no.
The claim that IPR places tremendous cost on society is warranted by enough studies to make it true.
Therefore we have a tremendous cost with not proof of benefit.
Further, of the nearly 7 million patens issued in USA since 1789, almost nothing patented has ever turned into a product If the extremely few items that are patented and are turned into products, almost nothing is ever profitable. If anything, a patent correlates with failure.
Nonetheless, we maintain a state agency with $3 billion budget for this regime.
It is not true that if you do not have monopoly rights you cannot make any money. As opposed to all that is traded in commerce, only a sliver is covered by patents or IPR. For example, 70 percent of new books sold are not covered b copyright, they are public domain content. It is true that almost everyone owns some Apple product, now the largest corporation in the world by stock value, but an Apple product is a minor purchases in a persons economic activity. The single largest purchase a person makes in a lifetime is a home for which intellectual property pays almost no part . Food, clothing, gas, utilities, the next biggest costs, are rarely associated with intellectual property. In any event, there is little monopoly if any, on those items.
Almost nothing traded in commerce is under IPR, yet people seem to make money without it.
You can invent, market, manufacture and sell an item and make money. Based on customer feedback, you are likely to change your designs to please an ever wider group of customers.
You can market, manufacture and sell an item and make money. Based on customer feedback, you are likely to change your designs to please an ever wider group of customers.
In both instances the marketing, manufacturing, selling, and distribution is by far the major effort in making money. The design is a minor part of the effort.
Therefore, small businesses really have no business with IPR anyway since they are constantly changing their offering.
Factories make money selling things they make. They want the best designs, so they can make more items. Designers may contract with factories to bring their designs to a given factory, in return for what we now call royalties. In this was designers can make money under contract law, which is a part of natural law, and not bother with IPR, which is not found in natural law.
Apple Computer sells a system of distributing music called iTunes. By paying well, Apple attracts the best artists to Apple’s means of production, iTunes. So it is with factories and artists. We need no IPR for artists to make money.
Someone else can ”steal” market, manufacture and sell an item and make money. Based on customer feedback, they are likely to change your designs to please an ever wider group of customers. This is good for the consumer. This is were true wealth, more options to choose form that more closely match your desires. Yes, the free market militates against individuals amassing personal wealth, so defined, but it was never intended to provide massive personal wealth. The purpose of the free market is to offer ever more options at more better cheaper faster. The free market is essentially about justice in distribution.
The research and development of products contributes almost nothing in the way of costs.
I understand in capitalism companies SPEND phenomenal amounts of money on research and development, but R&D does not cost that much.
Business expenses are taken off the bottom line, and the bottom line is what is subject to tax. In the pharmaceutical industry, imperial lifestyles are buried in the R&D budget. Vacations, sexytaries, Aspen and Davos confabs, personal effects, kids education's, sinecures for friends and relatives, bribes to officials, are all buried in R&D. IPR invites personal corruption.
R&D that pays off is marginal, tiny tweaking at the margins. Apple continuously introduces excitement with its miniscule improvements.
Why should society prevent individuals from using their equipment and skills to market, manufacture and sell an item and make money?
But what if our competitor goes low price? Then you can go low price, if you want that market.
What if your competitor puts his name on your product? If he does well, apparently people prefer his name on your product. Therefore, if you want that business, put his name on your product. If you do not want that business, leave it to them.
The fatal flaw in IPR is the holder shifts from marketing to violence backed monopoly. Why should taxpayers be obliged to fund state agents to sort out a disagreement between and inventor and an adopter? It was not necessary under the law merchant, why is it necessary now? 4th and 5th parties pay to protect 1st parties in disputes with second parties. Why should I contribute to the millions in cost to protect bill gates from the free market? Why not let Bill gates pay to protect his so called “wealth.”
What IPR does promise, aside form a sinecure for lawyers, is that you might win a lottery of sorts. You might gain exceptional personal wealth. Thus IPR appeals to the sort of people whose hopes are tied up in winning a lottery. A lottery has one winner and countless losers, with nothing of value otherwise provided. This is why all major religions condemn gambling.
The cost of IPR is less wealth for everyone else.
A lottery mentality is not a sustainable economic model.
In a free market, an individual may make less money, but never too little money, because one can always redesign to please more customers. A free market is the only means of facilitating people’s best efforts, and rewarding it. We see with deregulation how, as in telephones,we get more better cheaper faster. This would be true of food, medicine and education as well. There was no way to foresee the good we have now today back in 1980 when the telephones were deregulated. Unregulation would be even better.
It may mean you will make less money, but that is not proven. it may mean less money, less personal wealth, but not less access to a wider range of goods and services at ever lower costs.
Bastiat noted how economic calculation cannot include the unknown, what we would have if we were free. WE can know it is better, we just do not know how, what new wonders we would see.
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