I honestly can't comprehend how anyone wound think having a monopoly on a material is valid. They will make money without being the cartel of the superconducting sector.

It wouldn't necessarily have to be a monopoly. There's such a thing as compulsory licensing and statutory licensing. That is, government(s) could decide that the patent is valid, but anybody can use it (without needing the patent holder's permission), as long as they pay the patent holder. And the government could decide to set the price.

Patent have reasonable terms. They will have a 20 year head start and then everyone will be competing with them. It's something that will be free in the same lifetime as the researchers, most likely. It's not abusive like current copyright that locks ideas for two generations.

Just to be clear: you're arguing that it's actually a good thing to deliberately slow down application of a revolutionary technology, so that people can make money?

yes, the time frame is limited enough that people can have an incentive to innovate, without being brutally oppressing. we're not locking civilization into the stone age for multiple generations while coros become filthy rich, it's just 20 years and then it's free game for everyone.

now, if it were to death + 75 years, or whatever inane number is copyright today, you'd hear a different story from me. but it is not.

Well then, I'm glad we don't have any emergencies at hand that will be too late to do anything about in 20 years.

Do you think that having a monopoly on some invention will prevent widespread usage of that invention? Like, "yeah, we invented fully clean carbonless way of making energy for 1% of current prices, but no one will have it"? Currently it just means that the creator of widely usable technology will have some percentage of money for others using his invention instead of others making all the money from his invention while he has a pat on the back.

Yes, I do think that, because that is literally what has happened before.

Companies price their offerings so that the global north will buy it, and the global south will have to pay proportionately extortionate amounts, with no relation whatsoever to the cost of production or research.

If that was the limit, the global South would be able to live in 2003 global North standards, because patents only last 20 years.

It seems so incredibly reductive to attribute global South issues to patents.

Never said it was the only issue. Reading comprehension.

semiconductor without clean power is not going to impact climate change that much

for compelling emergencies states can already waive patents, so the relevant mechanisms are already in place if anything momentous happens.

Yes, because this is partly why everyone keeps working so hard to produce a revolutionary technology. This is also the way it works with drugs, we have just been through a pandemic and a lot of people made a ton of money over their inventions, rightly so.

The pandemic where governments in the global south were fleeced by pharma companies, while the global north enforced patents and let millions of people die? Which, by the way, is still happening in a lot of poor countries that just don't have the money to afford the vaccines.

Not to mention the fact that the vaccines were developed with public money.

Yeah, the pandemic where rich countries had developed economies capable of producing such vaccines, which they then donated massively to poorer countries [1] or sold to other countries at reduced price. If these companies did not exist, or if they had no profit motive, no one would have had vaccines.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covax-donations

You're wrong. Covax is a bandaid. If I cut your arm off, and then offer to pay for half the price of the treatment, that doesn't absolve me of guilt.

And you're wrong about the vaccines too. They were mostly developed with public money, private companies just profited off them.

Long, hard labor should be rewarded. And it is. They're receiving a salary, and now fame. That's more than enough.

> Long, hard labor should be rewarded. And it is.

Why do people ask for raises though? It is somewhat rewarded, but some people don't work long and hard and still have more money. Those working long and hard, having a big useable result want to be rewarded a little more.

Aren't these results mostly luck driven though? Lee and Kim were lucky to go to that university in Korea, lucky that their professor researched superconductor theory, and lucky that the professor's theory was correct.

At the same time, other researchers around the world weren't so lucky.

But because we don't know what's going to pan out without trying it out, the other researchers are just as integral to the process of discovery.

Is it fair to reward Lee and Kim for their luck, and let everyone else get screwed? Wouldn't it be more fair to make sure everyone is appropriately compensated to begin with?

> Wouldn't it be more fair to make sure everyone is appropriately compensated to begin with?

Yeah, it would be the perfect solution. Problem is how to agree on that, currently we have a market telling everyone what their "appropriate" compensation is.