alt Hacker NewsI think the "prove a negative" idea is a bit silly, my common sense says that the patent system should work better so if it doesn't, somebody's going to have to extensively prove it to me or show me a clear mechanism as to why it doesn't.
I could read a book on it but Italy/Switzerland (combined ~5-10% of drug discovery) making changes 60 years ago doesn't get me too excited about updating my priors.
My intuition is the opposite. My favorite example is the patent situation around flight in the 1910's, which ensured that the USA entered WWI without its own fighter aircraft industry. The US actually ended up buying french machines.