Patents are different creations than are copyrighted works of art, literature, or music. Those are very personal creations that have no other purpose that can be beneficial except in and of themselves for the enjoyment of the people who may wish to view, read, or hear them.
Patents are meant to protect inventions for a limited time to encourage advancement of technology and reward their inventors. By extending the life of patents beyond the set periods in law, may block the first purpose of the intent of Patents, and not permit the advancement of technology. A patent requires the inventor to describe his invention such that others can easily re-create it. I would support a reducing allowance for lower royalties over a longer period and after an initial period of exclusivity for the inventor to exploit his invention it must be mandatory to licensing all patents to all comers for a reasonable rate, similar to FRAND requirements of Standard Essential patents which are licensed to all comers under Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory rates so that technology can be used by all developers.
However, IF that were the case, then my argument for long term ownership of patents and inheritability of the Intellectual Property would and should also apply.
Our patent system is broken as it is currently implemented. . . because the terms are so short for certain patents, making monetizing the invention in the time available is problematic given research and regulatory costs and the requirement that patent application dates are the start date of the clock. Court rulings that a fictionalized description of an invention, even without describing how it can be accomplished, or even knowing if it is possible, can make the "invention" is no longer a viable patent, which make patents "prior art", thus making patents a difficult thing to defend once granted because all it takes is to find one non-technical minded judge to rule the patent invalid. We need a fairer system for the inventor, and for the people who want to license the patents under fair licensing rates.
My proposal would include the following:
All of this is about property rights. . . balanced with a reasonable public right to use intellectual property.
We also need to figure out a reasonable royalty rate for incidental internet use of photographic and music use by cutting and pasting. . . so that such innocent non-commercial use does not incur huge after the fact licensing demands from such organizations as Getty images that almost indistinguishable form extortion for innocent use of often intentionally non-labeled copyrighted images. The Fair Use doctrine needs to be expanded or nailed down for the Internet use for forums such as FreeRepublic.
A Friend of mine has long noted that when the Nation was founded, both Patents and Copyrights were the same length. (21 years, I believe.) Over the years, Copyrights have gotten more protected, and patents less so.
My friend also points out that Patents are for things that actually improve the world, that actually make it fundamentally better than it was. Music, Books, Art, etc. do not produce any tangible benefit to the world. They don't clean water, they don't feed people, they don't shelter anyone, and yet they are better protected than something useful, something that actually makes a difference to humanity.
Whatever arguments you have put forth in support of nearly perpetual copyrights, I would say they should also apply to patents. If anything, Patents ought to be even more heavily rewarded than copyrights, because patents produce tangible improvements. Sometimes forever.
Do you think it would be reasonable to keep a patent for 70 years after the death of the inventor, as is done currently with copyrights?