What is the law of private monopoly? Higher prices, lower quality, more waste. What is the effect? Monopoly profits are a tax on everyone else.
Patents are monopolies. They are protected by the law of the community. The community gives them value.
Polar make heart rate monitors. They patented an algorithm that estimated calories burned during exercise. It was reasonably accurate.
To protect the patent, all the other companies used algorithms that had to be so remote from the Polar one they were effectively useless, overestimating calories burned by 50%, making them a weight gaining device if used for weight control.
Patents are protection for an end product. No matter what the process. Yet there are infinite ways to deliver a process independently. So patents block innovation by others that will always be better in the end.
So others are prevented from developing a better process. Polar is a classic case.
When I become president of the world I will abolish patents.
* My trusty Polar 725x has served me very well. How much better could it have been?
Patents are monopolies. They are protected by the law of the community. The community gives them value.
Polar make heart rate monitors. They patented an algorithm that estimated calories burned during exercise. It was reasonably accurate.
To protect the patent, all the other companies used algorithms that had to be so remote from the Polar one they were effectively useless, overestimating calories burned by 50%, making them a weight gaining device if used for weight control.
Patents are protection for an end product. No matter what the process. Yet there are infinite ways to deliver a process independently. So patents block innovation by others that will always be better in the end.
So others are prevented from developing a better process. Polar is a classic case.
When I become president of the world I will abolish patents.
* My trusty Polar 725x has served me very well. How much better could it have been?
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