Patently stupid

Patently stupid

Posted Oct 10, 2012 5:44 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Patently stupid by paulj
Parent article: The Patent, Used as a Sword (New York Times)

Indeed, the latter might not need a study - competitors from the weak patent regimes might grow to destroy those in the strong patent regimes…

By which time it's too late to fix patents. You can read about chemical industry's involvement with patents in the Against Intellectual Monopoly book. The example is in chapter 9 and the story goes like this:
1862 - Britan & France have over 90% of market combined
1873 - Britan & France have 30-35% of market combined
1914 - US imports dues from Germany by submarines
Only Treaty of Versailles broke the hold Germany had over "civilized world" in chemistry market.
Britan and France never regained the serious chemical industry: once expertise is lost it's very hard to regain it.

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