Also, there are big problems with the idea of patents in general.
If Alice and Bob each invent and patent something, and you need both ideas to be a useful product, then if Alice and Bob can’t cooperate, nothing gets made. This becomes worse the more ideas are involved.
It’s quite possible for a single person to patent something, and to not have the resources to make it (at least not at scale) themselves, but also not trust anyone else with the idea.
Patents (and copyright) ban a lot of productive innovation in the name of producing incentives to innovate.
Arguably the situation where innovators have incentive to keep their idea secret and profit off that is worse. But the incentives here are still bad.
How about
When something is obviously important with hindsight, pay out the inventors. (Innovation prize type structure. Say look at all the companies doing X, and split some fraction of their tax revenue between inventors of X) This is done by tracing backwards from the widely used product. Not tracing forwards from the first inventor. If you invent something, but write it up in obscure language and it gets generally ignored, and someone else reinvents and spreads the idea, that someone gets most of the credit.
Let inventors sell shares that are 1% of any prize I receive for some invention.
That has all been considered extensively before and this post isn’t a good place to discuss it. Prizes have been found to be generally worse than patents and research funding.
Also, there are big problems with the idea of patents in general.
If Alice and Bob each invent and patent something, and you need both ideas to be a useful product, then if Alice and Bob can’t cooperate, nothing gets made. This becomes worse the more ideas are involved.
It’s quite possible for a single person to patent something, and to not have the resources to make it (at least not at scale) themselves, but also not trust anyone else with the idea.
Patents (and copyright) ban a lot of productive innovation in the name of producing incentives to innovate.
Arguably the situation where innovators have incentive to keep their idea secret and profit off that is worse. But the incentives here are still bad.
How about
When something is obviously important with hindsight, pay out the inventors. (Innovation prize type structure. Say look at all the companies doing X, and split some fraction of their tax revenue between inventors of X) This is done by tracing backwards from the widely used product. Not tracing forwards from the first inventor. If you invent something, but write it up in obscure language and it gets generally ignored, and someone else reinvents and spreads the idea, that someone gets most of the credit.
Let inventors sell shares that are 1% of any prize I receive for some invention.
That has all been considered extensively before and this post isn’t a good place to discuss it. Prizes have been found to be generally worse than patents and research funding.