Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter (now X) and Square (now Block), sparked a weekend’s worth of debate around intellectual property, patents, and copyright, with a characteristically terse post declaring, “delete all IP law.”

X’s current owner Elon Musk quickly replied, “I agree.”

  • @[email protected]English
    3•7 days ago

    it costs millions of dollars to get a manufacturing process up and running and in a good enough state to where it can actually work out financially. Without patents, your competitor can just take all of that work and investment and just copy it with the benefit of doing it right the first time, so they’re able to undercut you on cost.

    This argument makes no sense. Manufacturing lines are built all that time for unpatented products, plus a competitor can’t just “take all of that work and investment”, they will need to put in money to create their own product, even if it’s a copy they still need to make it work, as well as build their own production capacity.

    They’ll be second to market, and presumably need to undercut price to get market share… This is a very risky endeavour, unless the profit margins are huge, and in which case, good thing that there’s no patents…

    If the research is so costly and complex (pharmaceutical, aeronautical,…), then it should be at least partly funded by the government, through partnerships between universities and companies.

    Patents are not a solution.

    • @[email protected]English
      1•7 days ago

      Manufacturing lines are built all that time for unpatented products,

      And cheaply, because the research and productisation has been done by somebody else - this is an argument for patents

      plus a competitor can’t just “take all of that work and investment”, they will need to put in money to create their own product,

      Not true. One major issue is that many competitors literally copy the product exactly. Fake products wreck the original company

      even if it’s a copy they still need to make it work,

      That is 100x easier when you have a working product to clone

      They’ll be second to market, and presumably need to undercut price to get market share… This is a very risky endeavour, unless the profit margins are huge, and in which case, good thing that there’s no patents…

      The point is exactly that the fake product undercuts the original by a huge amount (they had no investment to pay off).

      If the research is so costly and complex (pharmaceutical, aeronautical,…), then it should be at least partly funded by the government, through partnerships between universities and companies.

      I agree that the government model makes sense for a lot of areas and products. But note that a government won’t invest millions or billions in developing a product if another country immediately fakes the product and prevents the government from collecting back the taxes it spent on the research.

      As I discuss above there are lots of criticisms to the current IP laws - adjustment is 1000x better than abolishing a system that has driven research and development for several hundred years

      • @[email protected]English
        2•7 days ago

        if another country immediately fakes the product and prevents the government from collecting back the taxes it spent on the research

        It seems you misunderstand the goal of goverment. Goverment doesn’t care if budget goes down, when quality of life goes up. What is the point of not researching and having bigger budget, if it can’t buy thing that did not get created?

        And then on goverment level there is no such thing as copyright or patent. On goverment level laws are not some external condition, but something that changed regularly.

        plus a competitor can’t just “take all of that work and investment”, they will need to put in money to create their own product,

        Not true. One major issue is that many competitors literally copy the product exactly. Fake products wreck the original company

        They STILL need to put in money to create their own product. You know, they can’t magic production lines into existance.

      • @[email protected]English
        0•7 days ago

        You’re utterly delusional. If this system has done anything is to stiffle small, independent producers and consolidate power in megacorporations.

        This is the kind of crap you’re defending: https://patents.justia.com/patent/12268585

        This is a random, recent patent from P&G. Read that bullshit, and then tell if if what they’re describing isn’t the most generic design for a diaper or sanitary napkin ever?

        “One permeable layer facing the wearer, then a semipermeable layer that tries to only allow liquid to move away from the wearer, then an absorbing layer, then an outer impermeable layer”

        Oh boy, if it wasn’t for that patent, I’d be pumping 500 million dollars into building a factory so I can flood the market with my cheap fake products! - said nobody when they read that.

        It’s hilarious how far removed from reality your ideal of patents is…