The Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them)

Worth noting that the paper is from the same two professors who published "Against Intellectual Monopoly".

It's a very small clique of people who produce much of the anti-patent literature. That would certainly leave it open to manipulation (just as if you want funding for a paper attacking global warming you'll find plenty of money to do so from the oil industry). Whether that's the case here, I don't know, but I'd hope that this topic can be studied by more people.

"Because ending all patent protections immediately would be impractical, Boldrin and Levine advocate several transitional steps, such as shortening patent terms. "The aim of policy, in general, should be that of slowly but surely decreasing the strength of intellectual property interventions," they write, "but the final goal cannot be anything short of abolition.""

This makes the idea impossible - sustaining the political will for 15-20 years (a random guess at how long it'd take) to wind down patents. That's 4-5 presidential elections or two-to-three changes of government here in Australia.

Nope.