For every 1% increase in the number of lawyers, economic growth falls 3% (1986)

Re:For every 1% increase in the number of lawyers, economic ... by londons_explore on Monday October 05, 2020 @06:40PM (#24692855)

There are plenty of new small industries where everyone is copying each others ideas and making better products... all until someone hires a few lawyers and starts sending out threatening letters, and suddenly all innovation stops because everyone would prefer to keep making current products than to make new products and be bankrupted by a lawsuit for copying someone else's ideas...

There are many times in my career that I have seen that as soon as lawyers get involved, all innovation stops.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:For every 1% increase in the number of lawyers, economic ... by bleepblorp on Monday October 05, 2020 @07:41PM (#24693299)

This isn't a new problem. There's a very good example of intellectual property retarding socioeconomic development in the industrial history of the steam engine.

Early steam engine development was a collaborative endeavor, with various engineers building on the ideas of others to make incremental improvements in steam technology. Then came Bolton and Watt, who used patents to stop the development of steam engines superior to their own products.

The Bolton and Watt patents prevented the development of steam railway engines, and in so doing delayed the beginning of the railway era--and all the societal development it created--by twenty years or more.

Intellectual property law is a gift to monopolists. It is not a social good.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_steam_engine

[ Parent | on HN ]