Patents are government-granted monopolies that specifically and legally enforce the distribution of income to the patent-holder (whether they created anything or not). As Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine say in their seminal paper (see link below)
[quote]The case against patents can be summarized briefly: there is no empirical evidence that they serve to increase innovation and productivity, unless the latter is identified with the number of patents awarded – which, as evidence shows, has no correlation with measured productivity. This is at the root of the “patent puzzle”: in spite of the enormeous increase in the number of patents and in the strength of their legal protection we have neither seen a dramatic acceleration in the rate of technological progress nor a major increase in the levels of R&D expenditure – in addition to the discussion in this paper, see Lerner [2009] and literature therein. As we shall see, there is strong evidence, instead, that patents have many negative consequences.[/quote]
[url]http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2012/2012-035.pdf[/url] - David
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