Mises Wire
Costs of the Patent System Revisited
I concluded there is at least a $31 billion a year net loss to the US economy from the patent system. Take a look a this fascinating graphic from Anatomy of a Patent Litigation. It estimates about $31 billion a year as the cost of patent litigation in the US. These cost estimates are not astounding. What is astounding is that anyone thinks this mercantilist statist monstrosity is libertarian or free market.
Update: Note, my previous estimate was based on a conservative assumption that patent litigation costs $20B a year. The more recent statistics as indicated in the chart is $11B higher. That means my original estimate of $31B net loss should be more in the $42B net loss per year range.

