The Founding Fathers of the United States considered intellectual property so important that they gave it a special place in the Constitution: “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
The framers of the U.S. Constitution were not wrong. Patents did serve an important purpose during the days when technology advances happened over decades or centuries. In today’s era of exponentially advancing technologies, however, patents have become the greatest inhibitor to innovation and are holding the United States back. The only way of staying ahead is to out-innovate a competitor; speed to market and constant reinvention are critical. Patents do the reverse; they create disincentives to innovate and slow down innovators by allowing technology laggards and extortionists to sue them.
