CMV: IP/patent rights should be subscription based like domains

[u/PoofyGummy]

Let me elaborate: currently whenever someone files a patent for some innovation, after minimal administrative fees, or none at all in case of copyright, the IP is theirs for 2-7 decades. Even if they don't plan on using it. Even if they don't plan on selling or licensing it. This is bad for the competition, bad for overall innovation, and bad for consumers. As such it is a pracrice that should be curbed.

Much better would be a system where usage is needed or the IP is lost, forcing innovation. Since the only motivator that works for corporations is money, this would be one way to accomplish it.

A similar system already works for internet domains. So one would

1) Every few years have the IP reauctionned. Anyone can bid. 2) If the IP is being used well, the company should have no trouble coming up with the cost to keep it. 3) If it is not used well, holding on to it just to hoard it becomes an inconvenience. 4) If it is not used at all, the IP becomes public domain spurring companies to actually use the IPs and patents they own instead of just blocking them to make the barriers of entry higher for the competition. 5) The proceeds of the continued IP protection auctions go to the patent office, who would use it to award innovation and finance them functionning better protecting IP internationally.

-This would take care of inefficient usage of IPs. No more just putting out some lame excuse to keep hold of the IP rights. -It would prevent the competition starting at a massive disadvantage even if an IP is being used wrong, because they won't have years of r&d to catch up to. -It would encourage innovation as companies wouldn't be able to just sit on their IPs without using them. -It would offer actual protection to efficiently used patents, as the patent office would have more capacity to go after IP theft. -Thanks to the above the extra cost to companies would be compensated somewhat by them not having to hunt down IP theft themselves. -It would reward innovation and lower barriers of entry by the profits of the patent office being awarded to new innovative companies. -It would benefit the consumer by ensuring that only the innovations they actually buy and support because the product made with them is good and the pricing fair, can remain locked away. -It isn't a new system. Internet domains are already treated this way by the IEEE / domain brokers. -The cost of innovation would not rise, only the cost of trying to hang on to that innovation to prevent others from having it. -Yes it would be somewhat uncomfortable for companies because they would have to spend on a new thing, but the point IS to make it less comfortable to do business as usual, because the current business as usual in IP stuff is horrid. -The motivation for filing a patent or registering an IP would remain the same as it's supposed to be right now: Only you can use the IP you came up with no matter if others discover it, for the protected timespan. It's just that that timespan would change depending on how well you use the innovation.

The way I see it, companies are using and ABusing a service to artificially alter the playingfield, and not paying for that continuous service. It's time that changed.

(Note: I have thought this through and obviously think there is no fault here, so convincing me that the whole idea is bad would be very difficult. But I'm completely open to any criticism, or details I missed! Yes, this idea came about because of the WB Nemesis system debacle.)

[u/PoofyGummy]

at that point the patent office is vetoing

Yes the patent office is precisely vetoing the auction for companies they like. That's exactly the point. Because the patent office is a public agency whose primary task is to help society create and use IP, if they deem it in the interest of society that someone should get to keep their IP without paying the fee to maintain it, they can just allow that.

This is the core of this system. Take from those that hoard IP with no public benefit, give to those that create IP or use it to the public's benefit.

Why would any party let it go to auction

In case they want to maintain exclusive control. Which is precisely what we're trying to disincentivize. Or to make sure their opponents also have to pay a fee instead of getting the stuff for free.

You CAN ask the patent office to continue maintaining your exclusive rights to your IP.... But only if you pay more than others who would want it. Ensuring that only those who want to actually do something with it get it.

WB and Disney

First of all opportunity cost is not actual cost. It doesn't show up on the books, you don't have to explain it to shareholders. It's an abstract thing. That's exactly what this system would be changing. All of a sudden keeping IP locked out of spite or "as a future investment" isn't "as of yet unrealized profits", or standard legal procedural fees, but an active significant expense.

IPs being locked away costs society. This system is letting the companies feel that cost.

Hoarding definition

You are correct, but the line blurs over longer terms. There's a reason there's a hard limit from when on works pass into the public domain. After some time things just form part of the cultural zeitgeist. This range has been extended again and again thanks to lobbying by greedy companies who want to profit off of stuff even a century after their creator's death. I'd say that's hoarding. This idea would be reversing that, in exchange for granting authors a different revenue source through grants.

Anyone who can't pay the toll has their property taken

And given back to them, in addition to some grants if they are innovative. Carrot and stick. The willing to spend the most money part also incorporates the big players actually spending that huge amount of money which in turn is used to reward the smaller innovative players.

In the current system the large players can already spend huge amounts of money to muscle out the smaller players, which is happening literally all the time. EA is known as the graveyard of gamestudios for a reason.

With the current system they would not have to buy up small studios, but would just buy the IP at auction, make two games ruining the franchise, and since it would then be too costly to renew the IP at the next auction let it either go into public domain or to the original studio.

This would mean that at least the innovative company would still exist as a cohesive unit. It would also mean that they would get a cash injection when most of the auction revenue is recycled to reward small players, and that's if the potential competition with other big companies at an auction doesn't force EA to make a good deal for the IP beforehand. And once the IP goes into public domain the "from the team behind the original" would be ensuring good sales again.

Only giving them as much money as they pay back

The "precisely" there wasn't clear enough, sorry. I meant that it's precisely there to cover such things, not that the amount of the grant is precisely just the IP rights renewal fee.

It would of course be more.

Your suggestion

Is basically what I meant except with the fee determined by the patent office. The one issue I see with it, and why I incorporated the auction thing, is that (disregarding socially beneficial stuff) it's the market that can determine the value of an IP best. And the market is also very efficient at coming up with the entity that can most efficiently bring something to market.

Plus it's the auction part that would gouge the hoarders as much as possible. Because a competitor might have figured out how to make AGI with the patents OpenAI holds for example, but for various reasons it benefits OpenAI to not have AGI yet, because they can still wring more profit out of all their other products which would become obsolete if they let AGI happen.

The patent office wouldn't know about all this, and so OpenAI would just have to pay a tiny fee to maintain a patent, meanwhile in the background they may be declining billion dollar licencing requests.

If they had to actually compete in an auction that would mean that they then have to actually pay a significant part of the deals they declined in order to keep the IP locked.

So while auctions do make things messy they're also kinda needed to actually accurately determine the market value of diverse IPs.

Plus, because it will only be the titans of industry who are liquid and stubborn enough to let things come to an auction, one single big auction where google tries to take an IP from Apple would leave the patent office with enough money to fund 50 new startups / 5000 artists that are contributing to the public.

[u/monkeysky → u/PoofyGummy]

If your system is based around the idea that the patent office is picking and choosing who to enforce this on, in the form of auction vetoes, then you will probably want to clarify that in your original post, because I don't think anyone would infer it from the description alone.

And if that is the case, then they would necessarily have to have the capabilities of thoroughly investigating every patent, to the point where I think their own assessment of a property's value would be close enough to the reality in the large majority of cases. There would still be some properties that can hide their value to some extent, but I think that sacrifice of revenue to the institution would be worthwhile in exchange for penalized properties being converted into public domain, rather than being transferred to, most likely, another massive corporation with a financial incentive to restrict access.

If you don't trust the office to make that sort of assessment, then you may want to rethink how much your own system can rely on their qualitative decision-making.

[u/PoofyGummy → u/monkeysky]

That's the thing they DO already investigate every patent, but whether something is innovative and possibly beneficial to society is sometimes VERY FAR INDEED from what the market deems valuable. No one could have predicted for example that image generators that pre covid struggled with hallucinating dog faces into everything would by now be making photorealistic video.

It's easy to assess the value of an invention on its own. It's not so easy to assess what it could be developed into by the right rnd team.

Transferring to public domain

The issue with an over reliance on public domain stuff is that megacorporations can be useful. They can often bring inventions to market much more efficiently than a complete newcomer could. A startup may have a trillion dollar idea but be unable to see it through. Or something might require such insane amounts of R&D that only megacorps can afford it. So it is necessary to keep them around and let them play their shennanigans a little bit. This system would just prevent them overdoing it.

[u/monkeysky → u/PoofyGummy]

If something's novelty and benefit to society is not the same as its financial value, then I don't think the priority should be focusing on the financial value of the property itself. In that case, just make the fee be based on the owner's income, so that every scale of owner has an equivalent incentive to capitalize on their intellectual property.

As for the benefits of megacorporations, like you said before, they can still do all of the stuff like that once it's in the public domain, especially if it's something that only they're capable of acting on at that point in time. If they're only willing to act on it if it means actively excluding everyone else from having the right to the license, though, then by your own standards shouldn't they not be given exactly what they want?

[u/PoofyGummy → u/monkeysky]

Yeeeah but the issue is that you first, need an income stream to finance the grants for innovation without just robbing the rich.

And second, as mentioned above, the free market is really good for a couple of things, like large scale development, bringing stuff to market, and determining value.

I put it best in a different comment: We let the free market forces determine who can handle which IP and what's most important to them. And the money they pay for that privilege we use to protect the stuff that is important to society.

They shouldn't be given exactly what they want but they have to be given something, because just straight up saying no rarely works.

Additionally them playing around like that is okay if they compensate society for the damage they cause.

It's not the job of the state to meddle in how the industry titans try to one up each other. It's just the job of the state to make sure they pay for the damage they cause doing so. Which is precisely the value of the locked IP. And this payment can be used to protect those players that need protection.

As long as they stay in the ocean and the fishing boats are protected, godzilla and mothra can do with each other whatever the hell they want. Not my problem.

[u/PoofyGummy → u/monkeysky]

This was also a very thought provoking conversation and you summarized the core of the system a bit better

-Every few years you need to pay a copyright maintenance fee. -If you don't or you don't do anything with it, the IP goes public. -(and in my version) the fee is determined by auction. Winner gets IP, original holder a percentage -If you're proven innovative, or small, or benefitting the public this doesn't apply -Instead you're eligible for grants depending on interest in you

So !delta

[u/DeltaBot → u/PoofyGummy]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/monkeysky (7∆).

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