[sorcerer-mar]

And so... how does a property tax fix any of what you're describing? If it's a bullshit patent that's not being deployed to the market, it can't possibly be very valuable, ergo will have no carrying cost. Only the patents that are deployed to the market and valuable will have high carrying costs.

> But all too often it's a malign fantasy.

All too often to severely destroy the incentive to invent new drugs? Yeah, gonna need a better source than your intuition as a patent lawyer to substantiate that.

[dctoedt]

> Only the patents that are deployed to the market and valuable will have high carrying costs.

You're assuming that "deployed to the market" means "actually making things that people want." That's sometimes the case, but far from always.

You're probably familiar with the term "non-practicing entities" in the patent world. (They go by other names as well.) Some NPEs are entirely legitimate, e.g., universities and other major research centers that actually do research and discover useful things. Other NPEs, though, are more-vulgarly but aptly known as "patent trolls."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll

[sorcerer-mar]

A patent definitionally only has market value (i.e. a value to be taxed) if it's something people want.

Right, I'm aware there's a spectrum from bullshit patent owners to non-bullshit patent owners. Why would you write a tax code to punish the latter while doing effectively nothing to the former?

You're fixating on the existence of bullshit patents which no one disputes. The question is whether this policy is a sensible way to address that, and you continue not to substantiate (or even articulate) any of your disposition toward that.