Wouter van Ooijen wrote:

>>> - giving a limited-time monopoly encourages investment in new
>>> discoveries that otherwise would not be discovered

This is a prerogative that is not proven at all. Same thing with
copyright on music, for example. There is nothing that proves that there
won't be music without copyright on it. Actually, history shows that
there was music without copyright. And there were inventions without
patents. Things would be different without them, that's for sure, but
who's to know how exactly? And whether that would be worse?

>> If it becomes hard to obtain, patents would be inaccessible to small
>> companies and individuals, helping big corporations for whom money
>> is not an issue.
> 
> IMHO the current practice hinders small companies more than it helps
> them.

Which basically gets down to that patents in principle don't work
(anymore). If the entry cost is too high, they can't be obtained by
individuals or small companies (even with smart new inventions); if the
entry is easy (like now), defending the patents is too expensive.

> The current trend is that you can file at least an initial application
> for ~ 1k. The downside is that anyone can do this, and it is accepted
> nearly without any checks. I think a level of ~ 10 k or a bit more
> would not make it unaccessible to small companies, but would allow a
> decent newness and inventiveness level research.

That's just a temporary solution, until the 10k (10k what? Euros? :)
brings the same level of uncertainty as the 1k now. This is just a
matter of time. Then what? And even with the 10k, it's still the same
story: if you don't have the several 100k that it probably costs you to
defend the patent, it may not even be worth the 10k.

Gerhard
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