this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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The original idea behind them had some merit: in exchange for showing everyone else exactly how to do a cool new thing, you got to temporarily be the only one to profit from it. They've devolved into parenting general ideas (see the shopping cart patent) and fucking over anyone who finds a way to make the idea work, though.
The key is "temporarily" though. Even in the 18th century and prior when technology evolved at the pace of a snail on sedatives that meant 5, maybe 10, at most 15 years.
Then in the 90s the world's international cartel of IP rights got together and decided they should make it 20 years everywhere, just so corporations can monopolize anything they make for the entire the duration of its usefulness. With the speed of progress today I'd be surprised if most aren't obsolete before they become available to the general public. 3D printing is only a thing now because Stratasys was hoarding the FDM patent since the fucking 90s.
Shit needs to go back down to 5 years again.