Incentive vs. Purchased Ownership

"Pretty important when we consider the opportunity cost of plain vanilla self-interest as it applies to intellectual property."

"I'll say. Bestowing ownership of new ideas to interested buyers based on ability to pay the most, alone is more than a bit counter-intuitive."

The patent law was initially written to benefit not just individuals who create but persons collectively, was it not?"

A legend surrounding US Patent law is the idea that by incentivizing invention for the benefit of the citizenry, more useful inventing would happen. Arguably over the years of its existence that has largely been the case.

But recently, patents have become a have's game (as opposed to the original more inclusive concept of the general citizenry). If true, moving away from the original benevolent intent runs the risk of creating a situation where owned ideas is no longer attractive or beneficial.

Is there a middle ground to harvest?

© 2013 Buzz Hill