If you think provisional patents are stifling innovation, you should see what happens when you tell these researchers that they no longer have the possibility of getting incredibly filthy rich someday from their discoveries - because all patents have been eliminated and a new era of "share and share alike for the common good" is upon us.
This assumes most of innovation is driven by hope of getting incredibly filthy rich, an assumption which I can provide plenty of counter-examples for. Eliminating all patents is of course counter productive as their advantage is obvious, but the current patent situation is far from being optimal (understatement of the day) so I'm certain a whole range of improvements are possible which will encourage innovation and do not necessitate switching over to communism...
> you should see what happens when you tell these researchers that they no longer have the possibility of getting incredibly filthy rich someday from their discoveries
My personal experience with this is that patents are only used as a kind of status symbol, in that they help researchers acquire new grants/funding ("look, it's marketable!") and make themselves look good to their institution. I'm yet to meet a researcher who's actually made any money off one, and most are by no means adequately compensated for their work.
That all said, I have met former researchers who've made successful start-ups from their academic work, and made money that way, and I'm sure patents were an essential part of that, but by that point they've left academia anyway. For them, I never had the impression that the prospect of making money was the motivating factor for getting into research. It was all just serendipity. Though I'm sure there are exceptions.
You mean, 'the possibility of getting incredibly filthy rich, and the likelihood of making someone else with a more basic patent incredibly rich'? A patent thicket is the paradigmatic tragedy of the anti-commons...
Nobody I know in research is in it for the money. There are much, much more direct ways for technically gifted people to get rich--look up "quantitative finance".
> a new era of "share and share alike for the common good" is upon us.
Bringing discoveries and inventions into the public domain for the good of society is the primary reason for having a patent system. To the extent that it inhibits this outcome, the system is failing.
They do actually own some % of it. They also do actually get filthy rich if the patent is worthwhile. The college I went to actually had two guys that invented most of the multi-touch technology that went into the original iPhone. Apple bought the patents out and the professor and doctoral student that had done the research made a good deal of money.
