Macroscope | Preserve patent rights that help make pandemic life bearable
- Patents and patent licensing have ensured technologies like videoconferencing and streaming services could evolve to cope with the pandemic
- As countries consider their economic futures, they must recognise the need for a healthy patent marketplace to ensure continued innovation
Sophisticated, internet-enabled audiovisual technologies, once a niche reserved for gamers and videophiles, have been gaining mainstream acceptance for some time, but the outbreak of Covid-19 kicked adoption into overdrive.
Today, internet-enabled audiovisual tech isn’t just everywhere – it’s essential. Without thinking much about it, most people figure we are lucky to have had such advanced technology when the pandemic broke out.
But luck has nothing to do with it. Patents and patent licensing helped these technologies meet the moment. As we emerge from the pandemic, policymakers should recognise how the patent marketplace helped countless people and businesses survive and even thrive.
The argument for strong patent rights has been the same for centuries: entrepreneurs and innovators won’t invest the resources necessary to invent if their discoveries can be immediately copied. We encourage and reward inventors by giving them limited legal exclusivity to their inventions via the patent.
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There is little question that, without patents, many of the audiovisual technologies we have come to rely on during the past two years would not exist. But there is a puzzle in this story.