Anonymous question
Yes, indeed, only a scarce resource can become property. As long as a dozen people possess information, it is a scarce resource. When information is known to everyone, what scarcity can there be? Meanwhile, patent law is the forced imposition on everyone of a state where they know something but are obliged to pretend they do not. It is as if I make a cool print on a T-shirt, wear it, and then pursue everyone who is inspired by this print and makes one for themselves, or creatively adapts the idea.
But the question was not about that, but about how the speed of the emergence of new technologies will change when patent law dies.
The very way new technologies emerge will change. Currently, it is profitable to develop something within an isolated collective, not knowing what competitors are working on, spending a heap of resources on leak protection, and then obtaining patents—thereby blocking the way for others. That’s it, you have priority; you can breathe a sigh of relief and calmly use the results while others try to find bypasses for the development of the technology that you did not protect with a patent.
In the absence of patents, it will be profitable to work as openly as possible and exchange all intermediate results with anyone interested. The speed of development will increase. The efficiency of technologies will increase because there will be no need to use unpatented bypasses.
The question arises: why would manufacturers feed their developers at all, wouldn’t it be more profitable to save on them and use others’ developments? No, it wouldn’t, because the maximum profit in the market will be gained by whoever manages to set up production and sales first, and for that, one needs to be very deeply involved in all the latest developments. Therefore, an in-house development team is not only an element of prestige but also the ability to remain at the cutting edge of technology.
As a result, those who want to stay in place will have to run forward even faster than they do now, since no state will tie anyone’s legs with any patent law.
