The light bulb example isn't adequately addressed by my original argument, but I have another one up my sleeve. Namely: If it's likely to the point of being almost certain that someone else will soon come up with the same solution, it shouldn't be patentable.
If inventors are to be rewarded by monopoly grants, it should be for doing genuinely challenging, innovative research, not for winning a foot race to the patent office, as happened with popular technologies like the telephone, or for trying random stuff until you hit the lottery, like Edison did with the light bulb. We, the public, would not have had to wait much longer for electric lighting if patent protection had been unavailable. We didn't get anything special in return for our monopoly grant to Edison.
An appropriate quote that I saved from an earlier HN thread: "It has always appalled me that really bright scientists almost all work in the most competitive fields, the ones in which they are making the least difference. In other words, if they were hit by a truck, the same discovery would be made by somebody else about 10 minutes later." -Aubrey de Grey
If inventors are to be rewarded by monopoly grants, it should be for doing genuinely challenging, innovative research, not for winning a foot race to the patent office, as happened with popular technologies like the telephone, or for trying random stuff until you hit the lottery, like Edison did with the light bulb. We, the public, would not have had to wait much longer for electric lighting if patent protection had been unavailable. We didn't get anything special in return for our monopoly grant to Edison.
An appropriate quote that I saved from an earlier HN thread: "It has always appalled me that really bright scientists almost all work in the most competitive fields, the ones in which they are making the least difference. In other words, if they were hit by a truck, the same discovery would be made by somebody else about 10 minutes later." -Aubrey de Grey