Patents and progress
Create a website where people can post ideas and inventions with the sole purpose of putting them out in the public domain so that anyone can get on with making it happen. Apparently you can’t apply for a patent for an idea that has previously been published.
I reckon that the types of people who have ideas are not necessarily the types of people who will get off their arse to bring it to fruition.
Scenario 1. Ten people have ideas and each gets patented but only three of them manage to get their idea / product to market. Now each of them has to pay a premium for these products and seven of the products can never be used. Three people are partly winners because of the patent system but they also suffer from the same system by having to pay more for the other two’s products and by not having the other ideas / products available.
Scenario 2. Ten people have ideas but they release them all to the public domain. Six of the ideas are snaffled up by twenty different companies and competition brings the value of these ideas down to what they are really worth. The other four ideas don’t get used because they were not marketable in the first place. Now all ten people have access to the best ideas for a fair price. Everyone wins.
Patents bad. Sharing ideas good.
