• Paradoxvoid@aussie.zone
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          11 hours ago

          Patents are (at their core) a good thing. It protects little Jimmy Inventor from putting hours and his blood, sweat and tears into coming up with a novel invention, only for some big corpo to see it, steal the idea and bully Jimmy out of the market.

          Jimmy has legal recourse to sue the big corpo if he has a patent, whereas without one he has nothing.

          Just because the system’s been gamed (especially in the US) doesn’t mean it’s impossible to reform, and is currently still better than nothing.

          • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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            7 minutes ago

            But patents for genetic beans, or drugs that the government or public institutions that we the public fucking pay for should be allowed.

          • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml
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            7 hours ago

            Patents are not, at their core, a good thing. They are nice for an idealized and transient scenario, but the reality of capitalism is that the vast, vast majority of investment, production, etc. are done by a handful of large companies, and that includes R&D. Patents are, in reality, overwhelmingly one of the many tools large corporations have to shut out upstarts. In short, it entrenches the power of monopolies, trusts, and similar large businesses.

            And that’s without even starting on how the law can be abused and, with the way our legal systems work, it is fundamentally more abusable for the side that has more money and can afford top corporate lawyers to concoct convenient arguments, leaving little Jimmy in the dust.

          • Broken@lemmy.ml
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            8 hours ago

            I agree. The system is screwed up, but that doesn’t mean the intention was bad. Having no patent rights just means that whoever has more money will win. Big corps have the resources in both money and infrastructure to bring anything anybody else invents to market faster.

            So today, big corps win. If we do away with the system, then big corps win. The only solution is reform. Or consumer knowledge and the ability to resist buying something in protest (which has failed time and time again which is evident by the big corps existence).

          • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            Patents as well as intellectual property laws, are entirely unnatural and only exist to prop up Capital.

            Its against human nature to prevent cultural iteration.

            • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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              9 hours ago

              Patents as well as intellectual property laws, are entirely unnatural and only exist to prop up Capital.

              Most people won’t understands this concept due to poor education they received. They will spout the propaganda that benefits their owner daddy and they will feel super smug about it too 🤡

        • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          Sure, but how do you solve the problems that patents in turn solved (and brought new problems with them of course)? That as kinda my point, if we just ban patents we can just look back to know which problems we need to solve in another way.