[beefield]

I offer one more alternative. Double the tax every year, and once the ip holder decides not to pay the tax, IP is released to public domain. No compnay has money to keep IP indefinitely in such a scheme.

[shiroiushi]

I've proposed this alternative on message forums like this for probably 20 years now, but specifically for copyright. I think it'd be a great way to let Disney and co. have the long copyright terms they want for extremely valuable properties, but get other stuff into the public domain much, much faster.

Instead of doubling every year, my proposal is 5-year terms: the first is free, then $1000 for the next 5, $10k for the next 5, $100k for the next 5, etc. Feel free to adjust the actual dollar amounts, but you get the idea. Most stuff would be in the public domain after 10 years, if not 5.

[KittenInABox]

I would suggest only for corporations above a certain size. I would appreciate if some old music composer somewhere gets to continue being old and stuff without worrying about this sort of thing.

[nextaccountic]

Music is coveredby copyright , an entirely different law

[polishTar]

A lot of patent trolls are very small companies though

[DylanDmitri]

Music compositions get covered by copyright. Patents are another section of law.

[akoboldfrying]

What do you think will happen if IP becomes impossible to afford, as it surely will under such a policy? Do you think companies that value IP will bother investing further in R&D, let alone even stay in your country?

Congratulations on the massive net loss in taxable income in your country.

EDIT: Removed some mean words.

[patmcc]

It'll only be impossible to hold for long periods of time. We can start the tax at $1, it hits $1mil after 20 years - and for 99.9999% of IP by year 20 it's either clearly worth zero or clearly worth >$1mil so it'll be an easy choice. It'll force things into the public domain faster and make it expensive to hold a big bullshit patent catalog, but for actively used properties it'll be fine.

Companies are going to want to sell in one of the richest markets in the world; they can either pay for IP protection or not be granted it.

edit: I'm not suggesting these exact $ values as clearly being the correct ones, it's just an example.

[hervature]

You do not seem to understand how patents work because of other comments thinking that you can patent something without publicly disclosing the invention. In and of itself, this comment is silly because the answer to your question "What do you think will happen if IP becomes impossible to afford, as it surely will under such a policy?" is "exactly what happens when patents expire currently." It appears you are unaware that companies still invest in R&D knowing they at most get a few decades of exclusive rights.

[dustingetz]

in the software ip case, they can invest in building competitive products in an open market. If your software IP is a secret then don’t publish!