Pirate Party Declaration of Principles/2.0/Patents
The Problems with Patents
Patents were supposed to encourage the dissemination of knowledge and information by offering a time-limited protection for those who invent and invest in new inventions and methods. We believe it is only fair and natural that inventors and investors alike shall be able to gain remuneration for their work and ideas. However, patents today are mainly used to prevent innovation by hindering competitors. When created, the patent duration of 20 years was a third of the inventors' lifetime and still a reasonably short timespan compared to the general pace of development. Today, 20 years is nothing to a large corporation but an eternity for society to wait for innovation. This equation no longer computes.
Patents are used to block competition, big pharma stops developing countries from copying patented AIDS medicines, farmers get sued when a patented GM crop is accidentally spread on their fields, software patents cement the monopolies of big software houses, small inventors are dragged into courts for years to defend their patents and industry wants to patent your genes. We say it's time to put a stop to this madness.
We aim to abolish patents.
We wish to see a society where small and big parties alike can compete on equal and fair terms with weapons like quality, customer benefits and price instead of with patent attorneys. This will liberate resources they can use to innovate for the good of all.