Pesticides and the Patent Bargain

In order to enlarge the pool of knowledge available in the public domain, temporary exclusive rights (i.e. patents) are granted to innovators who are willing to fully disclose the information needed to reproduce their invention. After the 20-year patent protection period elapses, society should be able to make free use of the publicly available knowledge described in the patent document, which is deemed useful. Resistance to pesticides destroys...