Patents were meant to reward inventions. It's time to talk about how they might not
- Written by Rebecca Giblin, ARC Future Fellow; Professor; Director, Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, The University of Melbourne

For hundreds of years, we’ve been told patents help deliver big new inventions, such as life-saving drugs.
They are meant to be a bargain between the inventor and the public: tell us how your invention works, and we’ll give you a fixed time – a patent protection period – in which you’re the only person who...