alt Hacker NewsA patent was meant to give a solo genius a way to treat their idea as something tangible, at a time when logistics was much slower and the world revolved around the physical.
Maybe they try to develop it themselves, maybe they sell the idea to a big corporation that has the resources to implement it. Either way, genius begets profit, and the world gets genius ideas... in theory anyway.
But a genuine idea back then needed a long time frame to actually do something with it. 20 years seemed reasonable at the time.
The world is less logistically constrained these days. Make it 5 years, no renewals.
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That, and we're also past the need for geniuses to keep grinding in a cave, in hopes of landing a patent.
People are far more empowered today, many more can work near the bleeding edge, and funding can be arranged in different ways than holding on to a patent.
Solo geniuses don't have the money to operate the patent system, it doesn't work for them. All they can do is sell for cheap or else get bogged down. When they invent as an employee they outright don't own it. That's a moral outrage. And that's what the patent system is to individuals.
Good luck publishing in Costa Rica. When you're not privileged you're likely to be on the losing end. So what use is it? Better keep your invention a secret, like most do, and let the next generation display themselves as the inventors. That's the alternate reality the system actually supports.
The whole system should be scrapped. Publishing is easy nowadays, just do it. Then you'd have the rights of you can prove you're the first. Anyone that wants to use can/must give you a known amount of royalties, depending on whether the invention is a unique enabler of a class of products, or just an optimization. Which it will become over time. If you don't want that, keep it a secret and build company around it.
A patent is meant to encourage people and companies to share the details of their inventions, instead of keeping them secret. In return the inventors get protection for a certain number of years.