#hight tech

Some illustration I did 2 years ago for the game SpaceRun Galaxy.

"L'art ne transforme pas, il formule."

Two economists at the St. Louis Federal Reserve published a paper arguing to abolish the American patent system, saying there's "no evidence" patents improve productivity and that they have a "negative" effect on "innovation."

The research suggests that President Barack Obama's 2011 patent reform legislation -- one of only a handful of major bills to clear Congress with bipartisan support in recent years -- was wrong-headed.

Patents are designed to encourage innovation by granting inventors long-term monopolies on new products. In recent years, however, several innovators in high-tech sectors have complained that the large volume of vague patents has become a major barrier to innovation. When start-ups attempt to unveil a new product, they risk violating a broad, obscure patent.

"Our preferred policy solution is to abolish patents entirely," the paper's authors, economists Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, wrote. They conclude that problems with patents in fact run much deeper than many critics of the recent system have emphasized.

"The historical and international evidence suggests that while weak patent systems may mildly increase innovation with limited side effects, strong patent systems retard innovation with many negative side effects," Boldrin and Levine wrote. "More generally, the initial eruption of innovations leading to the creation of a new industry—from chemicals to cars, from radio and television to personal computers and investment banking—is seldom, if ever, born out of patent protection and is instead the fruit of a competitive environment." The paper also argues that the patent system is damaging public health by raising the cost of prescription drugs, while failing to generate a plethora of innovative new treatments for life-saving diseases.

"Rather than just ratcheting up patent protection, there are a number of moves we could make to reduce the risks and cost of developing new drugs," Boldrin and Levine wrote.