this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
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Copyright and patents: 10-20 years maximum, depending on the industry. Trademarks should be forever, because that kinda defeats the point of a trademark if it expires.
Let me give an example I understand personally: Rubik's cubes. Rubik's cubes were invented by Ernő Rubik, and gained widespread popularity in the early 80s. In 1982 there was a speed solving competition, where Minh Thai got the world record fastest solve at 22.95 seconds. After this, the "craze" died out and it lost much popularity. Ideal Toy Corp sold the puzzle and retained a patent on it until 2000, after which was the second cubing craze. Sales doubled between 2001 and 2003, and the speed solving competitions came back. This time, however, solvers were not buying the stiff, clunky, catchy, sandy "Rubik's Cubes", they were at first appearing to be buying Chinese "knock-offs", brands which quickly developed recognition and brand loyalty among speed solvers. They were designed for speed, they had looser springs, less plastic, but "torpedoes" to keep them in place under other pieces, and cut out corners to allow imprecise movement. You can buy a better cube than the Rubik's Cube for less money than a Rubik's Cube. You can buy 10 speed cubes for the price of one Rubik's Brand speed cube, their failed attempt at capitalizing on the market. Rubik's Brand has spent the entire time up until very recently not interacting with the rest of the community, trying to sue companies out of selling their products.
I'd counter this by saying that Trademarks should be for the life of the corporation, and corporate lifespans should be mandated to be somewhere under 50 years.
At a conceptual level, businesses aren't a static thing that are owned by a single corporation forever. Some businesses start off as family owned small businesses, or grow in exchange for outside investment, etc. When a parent passes on a family business to their child, something about that business has changed, of course. But should the child, or the grandchild, or future generations lose out on the name after 50 years?
Moving up the scale in size/complexity, you'll have partnerships between multiple owners/partners, who might want to work together temporarily, or for as long as they can, on some kind of joint partnership. A band, for example, wants to release songs under their band name, even as members might change over time.
And for larger corporations, there's a value in licensing, as well. The local McDonald's might literally be a family owned business, but franchised under strict rules by which it may use McDonald's trademarks in exchange for adherence to corporate's prescribed procedures and policies (and lots of money).
Some kind of expiration date doesn't really make sense in that situation, either.
Either way, brands and reputation last more than 50 years, and do actually provide value to the consumer. Even from the largest corporations in the world.