Patents and Copyrights

[Wayne TenBrink]

I have a semi-serious, semi-rhetorical question:

Why are patents for a limited time, but copyrights are basically forever?

If I invented the perfect mousetrap and the world beat a path to my door, I would only have the exclusive rights to my design for 17(?) years before everybody else could copy it and sell cheap knockoffs.

If I wrote a song about the perfect mousetrap, I could collect royalties from anybody who performed it in public for the rest of my life, and then some.

Why are the various forms of intellectual property handled so differently? Is there some "logical" history or reasoning, or did the copyrights people just have better lawyers and lobbyists? It's not like all patents are so critical to humanity that they must be shared eventually, or all copyrights are the sole income the otherwise destitute artists.

And what about licenses?

[MrForbes]

I think patents were originally intended to encourage invention. It worked, Americans invented an amazing variety of neat, useful, commercially viable things.

Whereas copyrights were intended to protect creative property.

And licenses are a contract between parties to agree to do something for a specified, usually limited, time.

It makes enough sense to me that I've never questioned it.

[Tristan Lall]

In the U.S. they're both enabled by the same clause of the Constitution, so at least in some originalist sense, the intention was similar. It really does come down to the copyright people being more able to secure longer and longer terms. But both predate the U.S. by centuries, so unless interested in the details of American law, we should look to history as well.

Nowadays, copyright and patents are principally governed by a series of international accords and treaties that are implemented and ratified in domestic law by signatory countries. Those allow reciprocity between countries. In the case of the U.S., domestic copyright terms of protection actually exceed the minimum thresholds agreed to under the Berne Convention.

Similar treaties exist for patents. And right now, the term of U.S. (invention) patents is 20 years from date of filing. This used to be 17, but was changed to match other countries' terms.

[DonRotolo]

The idea behind patents is that in 1 relatively short time (17 years*) technology would advance sufficiently such that the value of the invention would be close to zero.

Copyrights are valid for a far longer period because the advance of creativity is relatively quite slow. Bugs Bunny cartoons from 60+ years ago are still entertaining today, for example.

That help?

(*As defined by USPTO)

[Al Skierkiewicz]

No one has yet mentioned the length of time or expense to obtain one vs. the other either.
As an aside, I have a friend who worked for a rather large tool maker for a number of years. He quit when the company had him in court defending tools that had been first patented in the 1800s and were still being used by idiots who hurt themselves. One of the cases that was the straw that broke the camel's back involved pole climber spikes. A user (power company employee) got fed up one day after something like 12 years on the job, and decided to step off the pole 12 feet above the ground. He testified that he knowingly unhooked his safety harness and jumped off the pole, Not fell mind you, jumped. When he landed, the pole spikes jammed into the asphalt and broke both legs in several places. He was suing the manufacturer for something like $1.5M because the spikes didn't have a warning label against stepping off the pole at 12 feet above the ground.

[Carol]

Art. 1, Sec. 8. "The Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

I don't work on copyrights, but I can explain the patent system. In order to prevent inventors from keeping their inventions as trade secrets, and to in order to share knowledge and allow others to build on that knowledge, an inventor is allowed exclusive right to sell and practice their invention for a limited time.** But, to get these rights, the inventor must teach others how to practice and make their invention. So it's a tradeoff. An inventor can reap the benefits (= make $) by keeping their work as secret, with the risk someone would discover it independently, or can tell everyone how to do it but get a guaranteed period of time where they are the only ones allowed to sell and practice the invention.

Of course some inventions can't be kept secret, such as a better mousetrap. So why would someone spent time and effort to develop a better mousetrap unless they know they can recoup their money by selling the mousetraps before competitors copy them and sell them as well? That is what the patent system is trying to encourage - to promote innovation by making it cost-effective to spend money on research and development.

**The life of a patent is 20 years from the filing date. It used to be 17 years from the issue date.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Copyrights are valid for a far longer period because the advance of creativity is relatively quite slow.

I don't think that's strictly true: early copyrights were often for much shorter terms, and yet were intended for the same public purposes as today. Indeed, it's probably fair to say that in the last century, the advance of creativity has accelerated—but that period has nevertheless seen the greatest increases in the term of copyright.

I think the main factor driving copyright term extension is private economic benefit, rather than social benefit. There's basically no downside, from a copyright holder's perspective, because to them, the value of their work (which they control and earn money from) greatly outweighs the value of others' cultural property (which they'd be able to eventually use for free).

[efoote868]

The idea behind a patent is this: I teach the world how to do something, and for a bit of money, the government grants me a monopoly on my idea for a length of time. It gives me an offensive weapon to pursue those that don't pay me for my invention. This includes derivatives of my invention (e.g., I invent the bicycle, someone else invents a banana seat for the bicycle. My patent still covers their invention, so they can't produce bicycles with banana seats without paying me.) It does not give me a right to produce my invention (I'd still have to pay the person that invented the wheel). It is considered very strong protection.

A copyright is a weaker form of protection. It gives me a right to what I write or record and distribute it. It protects the form of expression, not the subject. For instance, I could re-write Harry Potter from Hedwig's perspective, and in telling the story differently gain rights to this new work and sell it as my own. J.K. Rowling couldn't do anything about it.

[Dick Linn]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

... Bugs Bunny cartoons from 60+ years ago are still entertaining today, for example...

An some old patented items are still hilarious today, like the fan that fastens to your head and is powered by a jaw strap.