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October 2, 2012 01:05 pm

Judge Posner Muses on Excessively Strong Patent and Copyright Laws

Ars Technica reports on Judge Posner's weblog, and in particular a recent post on the excessive strength of U.S. copyright and patent law: "The problem of excessive patent protection is at present best illustrated by the software industry. This is a progressive, dynamic industry rife with invention. But theconditions that make patent protection essential in the pharmaceutical industryare absent. Nowadays most software innovation is incremental, created by teamsof software engineers at modest cost, and also ephemeral—most softwareinventions are quickly superseded. ... The most serious problem with copyright law is the length of copyright protection, which for most works is now from the creation of the work to 70 years after the author’s death. Apart from the fact that the present value of income received so far in the future is negligible, obtaining copyright licenses on very old works isdifficult because not only is the author in all likelihood dead, but his heirsor other owners of the copyright may be difficult or even impossible toidentify or find. The copyright term should be shorter."Reader jedirock pointed to a related article on how the patent situation got so out of hand in the first place.

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