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Michael E. Tigar answers the following question

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Question

Why don't we dump all patent laws all around the world and stop restraining creativity and innovation? esavard


Answer

Michael E. Tigar: I'll go part way with you. Patent law as it was conceived, was designed to reward inventors by in exchange for a full disclosure of the invention, a limited time within which they could profit from it. That idea of patent laws is in fact an inducement, a spur to creativity. But what's happened is that engrafted under patent laws are ever longer terms of exclusivity, confiscatory licensing provisions and then this thing called trade secrets, which are based on nondisclosure of essential information by which nondisclosure courts and capitalist countries hold that corporations usually, hold limitless ability to exploit knowledge. It's that pounding up of knowledge, it's that surrounding of what ought to be a common treasury for all as the old English Digger Movement used to say about the land, that is the evil. And the appropriation for private purposes of intellectual property that ought to be the common treasury for all is the evil against which we are now contending. And I suggest that if you would just modify your question a little bit, then - well you and I would be in agreement for whatever that's worth - but we could unite the interest in encouraging invention with the interest of all people in breaking the power of monopoly capital to restrict access to information and the fruits of creativity.