>> Producing inventions costs money. Equipment and supplies must be purchased, people must be paid so that they can pay their way.

Where does a fixed 20 year monopoly period per patent claim account for the fact that many “inventions” reuse investments and equipment and even work hours that were used to arrive at other patents already and perhaps which have already been paid back through profits?

Of course a fixed 20 year monopoly is a horrible solution to almost any problem, but I just wanted to accept this premise to make the prior point.

Read my prior comment “Re: nonprofit” to see an example where a monopoly subsidy (of modest duration) might make sense and for one alternative to monopolies (essentially, mandate royalties but capped through a tax mechanism).

We should always avoid stifling the many that are efficient producers (eg, who would do further R&D, manufacture, distribute, etc) or simply who can contribute further, by avoiding the huge opportunity costs that tend to occur when we place so much market control (monopoly/injunction) in the hands of a single highly biased entity.

We should also avoid encouraging the inefficient allocation of dollars. These inefficiencies are very likely to happen, for example, if we offer too large of a reward to first place and then give nothing and actually take much away for coming in second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. [As another example, if you have co-participants that will otherwise be severely punished and you offer too many benefits exclusively to the first to step forward with some degree of verifyable information, you will likely find at least one to step forward and to cheat the others.]

Note that a tax for the benefit of inventors and other contributors automatically adjusts for:
— cases where patents are too broad (assuming people are taking out patents on extensions to others’ work), because the loot is split;
— cases where the industry moves too fast and 20 years is a lifetime, since we avoid injunctions;
— where many contributed significantly (as long as these document the contributions in time and can get the equivalent of a “patent” or “contributor notice”.. see next paragraph);
— the fact that the treble damages rule does not encourage patent study but rather discourages it (especially if one is likely to “re-invent”), because no such rule will exist and because there is to be gained by co-joining in the overall invention process.

Auto-patents:

To be fair to **all** inventors and not discriminate needlessly, we make “patents” be automatic/implicit and $0 (as is the case for copyrights). This way, inventors that are busy implementing and perfecting the details of inventions and/or who are not very wealthy and don’t want to use a patent to sue, can gain the same benefits as those that are wealthy, aren’t occupied with the many important details of implementing an invention, etc.

Having “novel” work that solves part of the problem means you essentially get an “auto-patent” on that portion.

“Auto-patents” would take effect when you made the discovery (rather than when you did the write-up).

We prioritize the inventing (ie, which came first) in the more efficient “lazy evaluation” fashion where the entire private sector can also participate (we remove the USPTO bottleneck) as ideas/works/etc come to the public’s attention. One possible deadline would be for getting a split of the taxes that apply to a particular product. This deadline would likely be a few years after the first products hit market.

We should avoid giving all credit to a single entity since all inventions are a product of society (where many contribute significantly along the way).

Certainly, if we look back at refinements and discoveries 20 years before any invention, we will find many obvious cases of contributions (eg, within the field of mathematics and many scientific disciplines and even from fiction and liberal arts). Imagine if each of these contributory items were able to and had been monopolized for 20 years!

>> The capital for all this must come from somewhere.

The capital for everything must come from somewhere. What is your point?