How do patents act as an incentive to technological innovation?

Answer 1

They assure the creator of a process or item the right to make money off their invention for a certain time period. In terms of copyright, that might mean the author of a book can make enough money from sales and licensing that he can quit his day job as an accountant and dedicate himself to writing. For patents, it more often means that a pharmaceutical company has a chance of recouping the millions of dollars they invested in research and development of a new drug.

Answer 2

A patent allows the owner to recapture some of the time and money put into the research and development to create the invention, thus rewarding the inventors and stimulating additional inventions.

A patent is ALSO a public document that describes what is already invented, thus challenging others to invent improvements or alternative ways to accomplish the same or similar things without infringing the existing patents owned by others.

Answer 3

A patent is essentially a trade of a monopoly on an invention for a limited time (about 20 years) to an inventor in exchange for a full and complete disclosure of how to make and practice the invention. Without a patent system and adequate enforcement mechanisms, an inventor could invest the time, money, and effort to create an invention only to have that invention reproduced by a competitor who has not invested the resources, thereby potentially putting the original inventor in a less competitive position in the marketplace. Patents are intended to protect that investment of resources to innovate, by rewarding inventors.

Without a patent system, inventors may be inclined to keep details of inventions secret, which hinders the progress of science and the useful arts.

Answer 4

Patents give recognition to the inventor - as the person who first created it.