Robert A. Heinlein Quotes
An invention is something that was "impossible" up to then that's why governments grant patents.
Heinlein, Robert A. The Door into Summer. Doubleday, 1957.
This would seem a much easier solution to the problem of monopoly holders charging outrageous prices than trying to fix profits or lay a large tax on the profits. However, few governments ever do this. In many cases the patent holders control or heavily influence the government. There is in addition, in most Judeo-Christian societies an assumption that most people have a moral sense and will not take undue advantage of customers just because they have the power to do so. And in the most egregious cases of monopoly pricing there were many other patents where the inventors were not gouging the consumers. It is always been the minority of businesses that have taken gross advantage of patent monopolies. However at some periods, where there was an oligarchy, all the companies in an area abused their patent monopolies together. An example would be the pharmaceutical industry of the early 21st century.
Many people believe that patents—especially in the high technology arena—actually inhibit innovation.
This is a very important quotation in the Patent world. One of the major justifications for giving patent monopoly to an inventor is that without the patent protection people would not invest time, effort or money to invent things. However many of the great inventors have not agreed. The original Constitutional purpose in granting patents was to stimulate disclosure of technology to other inventors and educate the nation. That is why all patents are public and can be viewed by all.
When Secretary of State, Jefferson ran the first American Patent Office. The Patent system was originally and educational program, not an intellectual property program. Inventors would keep all their technological secrets to themselves. The idea behind the original patent system was to give an inventor a limited monopoly on profiting from his invention in exchange for sharing his information and techniques with his countrymen—thus improving the technological competency of the entire society. The very first patents were available for public inspection for that reason. And even today, copies of patents are available easily for almost no cost. And few American ideas worked as well as our early patent system. Through its educational role and technology transfer, America came from technological nowhere to being the pre-eminent inventing nation of the world. The balance between public access to invention and innovation and preservation of some rights to the creator of intellectual property is key to modern development.
This principle justified the Government in allowing a local Indonesian company to manufacture anti-AIDS drugs without paying licensing rates demanded by the drug companies that held the patents. The principle is that patent rights and the desire to profit should not supersede the rights of people to continue to live because they cannot afford the drugs to keep them alive. The local manufacturers provide the drugs to the government at cost of manufacture which is a tiny proportion of the price the patent owner charges.
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accuracy in his fiction, and was thus a pioneer of the subgenre of hard science fiction. His published works, both fiction and non-fiction, express admiration for competence and emphasize the value of critical thinking. His work continues to have an influence on the science-fiction genre, and on modern culture more generally.
