mihen :
I really don't like patents and wish they would go back to the original use of patents. 7 years and must be signed by the Secretary of State. Knowledge of a certain technology can help advance society so it would be best for it to be known while the patent holder has 7 years to make use of it.
It should be restricted to technology and healthcare.
As an engineer with several patents, I take issue with your statement. 7 years is not a lot of time. From the time I have an idea, start prototyping, refining, doing more prototypes, perfecting the science overcoming road blocks and hurdles, banging my head against a wall, then making rough manufacturing prebuilds, refining those builds, then going into full production, it might be 4-5 years from the time I file the patent while prototyping. Meanwhile during that time several employees have left the company and went to work for our competitor at a higher salary. So you're saying by the time we hit full production, we only get a roughly 2-3 year exclusivity on the invention??? By the time that first production hits the shelves, our competitors have purchased it and are reverse engineering it. When the remainder of the 7 year patent runs out, they're in full production and hitting the shelves the very next day. They wouldn't have spent anywhere near as much time trying to figure out how to make it work. They didn't have all the road blocks and hurdles during prototyping. They didn't put in the countless hours and years working late trying to make it work. They just copy it, and make a few tweaks and put it on the shelves. That hardly seems fair to the inventor at all.
Dyson vacuums, for example, was awarded his patent in 1986. But he was a garage inventor, investing his own money and nearly bankrupting his family for his invention. As soon as he had a working prototype, he was already trying to sell it to manufacturers in 1983 before his patent went through. He licensed it to a japanese company and called it G-Force which started production in 1986 and Dyson used that license money to pay for his own Dyson DC01 which sold in 1983. A full 7 years after the patent was awarded. If the patent ended, he could have had competitors selling similar vacuums before he could launch his own vacuum. Instead, he was protected by the patent and able to successfully launch the Dyson Vacuum, which people enjoy today.