this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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Your proposal is definitely less bad than the current system, but it still assumes innovation needs a government referee deciding who gets exclusivity, for how long, and when taxpayers should compensate private research.
That’s the part I can’t get behind.
If the product is not commercially viable without monopoly protection or public reimbursement, maybe the business model is the issue. And if the government reimburses the company, that just means society absorbs the risk while the company keeps the upside.
Who decides the reimbursement amount? Who pays for failed research? Taxpayers? Competing companies? Consumers?
Private companies should be rewarded by the market when they create value, not guaranteed protection from competition and then reimbursed when the state decides the invention is important.
Shorter patents reduce the damage, but they don’t remove the contradiction: a “limited monopoly” is still a monopoly.
I’m not sure which one of you I agree with. I think both kind of. I’d like for there to be a way for a small investor or team to get their feet under them and build a successful business but I also think it’s naive to think that’s what ever happens, usually it’s giant companies submitting endless unused patents or buying them to add to their closet of unused patents.
I’ve seen so many cool innovative products people have come up with just to have them swiped at scale by China. I always try to buy the more expensive original when I notice. I’m not upset at China or trying to throw shade either but it’s got to really suck to be those folks that go through all the work to design something build everything up and within a week of sales see clones hitting Amazon and being pushed over yours by the algorithms.
I think in general I just hate everything about how things are and feel like original inventors, designers, and creators should have a protected incentive to come up with the cool stuff they come up with.