Intellectual Property Reform

Question

I'm not a IP expert so please excuse any naivety on my part, but it seems like there's a really obvious way to settle the issue of providing "sufficient compensation" for patent-holders as incentive to create (which I don't necessarily buy as a line of reasoning by the way) and making the tech available to the open market.

Why don't we let patent-holders decide a price at which they'll relinquish their patent, and the public/corps/whatever can simply contribute to that fund? Once the "fund raiser" is complete, the company gives up the patent and every competitor is free to jump into the market.

Answer 1

It sounds good in theory, but how would we keep them from setting the amount at $100 Billion and keeping it locked up for a long time.

Rather than letting the patent-holder set the price, the patent release price could be tied to the cost of the product, or the revenue the product generates. The patent holder will be encouraged to keep the price of the end product lower so it can still compete in the market and stays within the consumer’s price range. If the product does not sell, it would set the release price lower because it is either not needed or the company failed to deliver a good customer experience. Another company could than come in and have a chance to make a better delivery to the market.

If the company has a huge success with the end product, that would set the price high and show they are doing a good job. It would show the product is valuable and the consumer is getting the benefit and the value they feel they should.

This will also keep out the trolling type of companies, since their products do not generate any revenue

Comments

@jabrink Actually an article by Karl Fogel suggested a simple means of avoiding over-pricing of IP assets: TAX THEM:

http://questioncopyright.org/shorter_better

The owner evaluates the price. Then they pay tax on the amount they evaluate.

Answer 2

Simple idea and I like it in principle. Will need to have a proper think about it but the thing that springs to mind is that unless those contributing to the fund got first shot at it's use, they're not going to contribute. They'd effectively be paying to put something into the domain for everyone else to use.

I know they're getting to use it themselves but I think that's the mindset they'd have.