The core idea of the book Patent Dystopia is that the patent system has created a dystopian world far removed from a free market. In this world, only large companies can thrive, often forming oligopolies that expand in two ways: across industries, as oligopolies cascade into adjacent sectors, and geographically, as they begin by dominating countries and eventually control global industries.

The foundation of these oligopolies lies in their extensive patent portfolios. They use these patents to harass and suppress competing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the economy's greatest sources of employment and innovation. As a result, workers have abnormally low bargaining power, the economy experiences suppressed demand and supply, innovation becomes evolutionary rather than revolutionary, competition among companies diminishes, and a multitude of other problems arise.

Our exploration is divided into three parts: the present, the past, and the future.

The root cause of many of humanity's current problems is the poor job market created by patents that suppress SMEs. This leads to various issues for both individuals and societies:

• Individuals face lowered income and bargaining power, resulting in unemployment for some and overwork for others, mental health issues, escapism into drugs, tribalism or conspiracy theories, debt, the rise of the underground economy, and many other problems.
• Societies face declining tax revenue from individuals, who suffer from a weak job market, and from companies, which face low demand and reduced numbers of surviving businesses. Under pressure to “do something” to fix the economy, governments often resort to central planning, disregard environmental concerns, engage in races to the bottom to attract businesses, accumulate government debt, print new money that distorts the economy, and trigger many other unintended difficulties.

There are 27 problems with the patent system. An effective way to visualize these issues is to view the patent system as a dangerous virus, with problems broadly grouped into two stages:

• Increased viral potency, the virus becomes stronger
  • Patent Problem #1: Subjectivity of Borders Between Ideas: The boundaries between ideas, such as inventions, are subjective. We cannot reliably determine if a new invention is obvious or too similar to other inventions, including previous (prior art) or future inventions. This leads to many invalid patents being granted, and the scope of each patent is unclear. Large companies exploit this by obtaining numerous patents, hoping some will withstand scrutiny. They also employ large legal teams to make patent litigation a lengthy and expensive process. These companies then use their patent portfolios to harass competing SMEs, who cannot afford the legal fees in patent disputes, even if they are in the right.
  • Patent Problem #2: Ideal Tool for Abuse of Market Power: Large corporations extend their initial technological dominance to control entire industries, expanding their power well beyond individual technologies.
  • Patent Problem #3: MAD Oligopolies: Industries consolidate into fewer players, surviving the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) strategy, where big companies sue each other for patent infringement. Eventually, they reach a fragile peace where each large company infringes on the others’ patents but cannot be prosecuted to avoid reprisals.
  • Patent Problem #8: Fake Inventions: Patent offices cannot verify if inventions described in patent applications work. They grant patents to fake inventions, which are then used to harass future inventors who have developed working technologies.
  • Patent Problem #9: Gridlocks Due to Overlapping Property Rights: Most technologies require numerous components to function, each patented by different companies. If any of these companies refuse to license their patents, a gridlock occurs, preventing the invention from being used.
  • Patent Problem #15: Vicious Cycles in Education: New companies and workers rarely gain a foothold in an industry because they cannot enter a market without a massive patent portfolio, which protects them from severe patent infringement lawsuits. Yet they cannot build such a portfolio without actually taking part in the market, since they need real-world experience with customers, technologies, and market demands to develop new inventions. As a result, both companies and workers are trapped in a vicious cycle.
  • Patent Problem #18: The Rise of the AI Inventor: Companies use AI to create inventions and fill the necessary paperwork to obtain patents, making the process much easier than intended in exchange for a monopoly over the technology.
  • Other problems: Many other problems with the patent system strengthen the virus of oligopolies because large companies can exploit or circumvent these issues more easily. SMEs suffer the most from the negative aspects of the patent system, while big companies use its flaws to their advantage. Each patent problem is another advantage for oligopolies against SMEs.
• Global epidemic, the virus spreads in two ways:
  • Across industries via Patent Problem #4: Cascading Oligopolies: Tech-based oligopolies cascade into adjacent markets, even those that are less traditionally technological, creating a domino effect across industries.
  • Across countries via Patent Problem #5: The Global Shadow Patent System: Oligopolies assert their dominance globally by leveraging the global shadow patent system, controlling markets across the entire planet.

The last few patent problems focus on how patents differ drastically from other forms of "intellectual property", such as copyrights, trade secrets, and trademarks. They also explain why patents alone pose a major problem for humanity.

In our analysis of history, we explore how countries that successfully developed their economies did not respect the patent system. On the contrary, they were enthusiastic patent pirates, stealing technology from more advanced regions.

This includes countries that succeeded during the Industrial Revolution, such as England and continental europe, followed by the United States, Japan, South Korea, and nowadays China.

We will examine how many of the American founding fathers were personally involved in patent piracy: They organized the immigration of specialists and imported machinery, especially from England, to gain access to their patented inventions.

Additionally, we will study how two countries, the Netherlands and Switzerland, refused to establish a national patent system during their Industrial Revolutions: These countries prospered during that time, and many of their key industries and companies that are household names today were born under such circumstances.

We will also explore the interaction between wars and patents: The urgency of defeating enemies led governments to allow large sections of society to ignore patents, resulting in massive innovation. Examples include World War II and when NASA was tasked with winning the Space Race against the Soviet Union. These periods saw massive job growth, increased workers' bargaining power, Education opportunities for individuals, and decreased inequality.

Furthermore, we will examine how Silicon Valley's was created by forces that allowed them to ignore the patent system: This created a culture that still despises patent enforcement to this day.

Lastly, we will explore how the Cold War unintentionally protected most of the world from strict patent enforcement: The fall of the Soviet Union led to a massive strengthening of the global patent system, resulting in more oligopolies, increased inequality, slowed innovation, and many other problems.

We explore why the only feasible solution is the complete abolishment of the patent system. We will examine expert analyses of the patent system, their suggestions, and why they do not address the root causes of its problems.

We will consider common arguments in favor of patents, including the fallacy of David and Goliath and the illusion that small inventors can use patents to protect their inventions from being stolen by large companies. We will debunk each common argument separately to prepare the reader.

We will perform rough estimates on how many jobs, companies, inventions, and innovations might be generated by abolishing the patent system. This will involve comparing the Chinese smartphone market, which has weak patent enforcement, to the global smartphone market, which has strict patent enforcement. While these numbers are rough and imprecise, they illustrate how to begin thinking about the future and its many nuances.

We will then explore how the patent system will end, identify universal patterns we are likely to see, and discuss possible scenarios in the following areas: the international community, the corporate sector, and national politics.

Next, we will consider the best business strategies for companies to employ to survive and thrive in a patent-free world. This includes advice for large companies, which are not necessarily villains of society; only those big companies that can avoid competition are harmful.

We will also explore the essential roles that current patent professionals, such as examiners and lawyers, can fulfill in a patent-free world by assisting companies in technology acquisition.

Finally, we will present an FAQ section, addressing possible alternative explanations for the economic issues the world is experiencing and how the abolishment of patents might interact with the rise of robots and artificial intelligence (R&AI).