Graphic: The Insanity of Patent Wars

From Bloomberg/Businessweek.com (hat tip Scott Lincicome)

Apple v. Samsung may be the most prominent, but battles over smartphone and tablet IP are raging around the globe. A glimpse of some of the key cases to go before the International Trade Commission.

Resources and efforts meant for innovation and production has now been diverted and expended towards litigation and intense political lobbying.

Graphic on Patents

Here is an interesting interactive graphics on patents from JSOnline. (Hat Tip Paul Kedrosky)





From Murray Rothbard in Man, Economy, and State (ch. 10, sec. 7)

``It is by no means self-evident that patents encourage an increased absolute quantity of research expenditures. But certainly patents distort the type of research expenditure being conducted. . . . Research expenditures are therefore overstimulated in the early stages before anyone has a patent, and they are unduly restricted in the period after the patent is received. In addition, some inventions are considered patentable, while others are not. The patent system then has the further effect of artificially stimulating research expenditures in the patentable areas, while artificially restricting research in the nonpatentable areas."