My own feeling is that patent terms are not currently a significant problem; for the areas where patents might be useful, they are short enough that someone will usually see the same patent registered and expire within their working life. We should strongly oppose any extension of them, but I don't think we urgently need to have them shortened.

I also think that there should be only a single term for patents, no matter what the field (as there currently is) and the same for copyright (some people have proposed different terms for software, books, music, movies, etc which I think is just silly)

However that's only my opinion. We'll take a vote on it eventually.

D H L P

The winning options were:

Patents on non-tangible 'inventions': [D] Abolish patents immediately
Patents on pharmaceuticals: [G] Stop granting new patents once an alternative system is in place
Patents on life: [L] Abolish patents immediately
Patents in all other areas: [N] No policy yet, but look for evidence-based solutions / analyses

Votes cast: 10 votes

The unadjusted Condorcet (head-to-head) results can be summarised as follows:

Patents on non-tangible 'inventions':

• 1st: [D] Abolish patents immediately
  (the above option beats every below option by at least 6 votes / 60%)
• 2nd: [C] Stop granting new patents once an alternative system is in place
  (every above option beats every below option by at least 6 votes / 60%)
• 3rd: [B] No policy yet, but look for evidence-based solutions / analyses
  (every above option beats the below option by at least 5 votes / 50%)
• 4th: [A] No policy

Patents on pharmaceuticals:

• 1st: [G] Stop granting new patents once an alternative system is in place
  (the above option beats every below option by at least 2 votes / 20%)
• 2nd: [H] Abolish patents immediately (requires 75% majority)
  (every above option beats every below option by at least 1 vote / 10%)
• 3rd: [F] No policy yet, but look for evidence-based solutions / analyses
  (every above option beats the below option by at least 3 votes / 30%)
• 4th: [E] No policy

Patents on life:

• 1st: [L] Abolish patents immediately
  (the above option beats every below option by at least 2 votes / 20%)
• 2nd: [K] Stop granting new patents once an alternative system is in place
  (every above option beats every below option by at least 2 votes / 20%)
• 3rd: [J] No policy yet, but look for evidence-based solutions / analyses
  (every above option beats the below option by at least 4 votes / 40%)
• 4th: [I] No policy

[W] No confidence in the vote (1 vote / 10%)

Patents in all other areas:

• 1st: [N] No policy yet, but look for evidence-based solutions / analyses
  (the above option beats every below option by at least 2 votes / 20%)
• 2nd: [O] Stop granting new patents once an alternative system is in place
  (every above option beats every below option by at least 1 vote / 10%)
• 3rd=: [M] No policy
• 3rd=: [P] Abolish patents immediately

[W] No confidence in the vote (1 vote / 10%)

Because H is classified as non-core policy, it would require 75% vs. 25% of votes (a 50% lead) to win the vote. Because H is not first in the unadjusted results, we don't need to perform the adjustment to check for this.

Condorcet (head-to-head) gives us a winner in each case, so STV is not needed as a tie breaker.

A fairly ok outcome.

Oh, and I'm going to call Pervach a socialist for disagreeing with me earlier!
Damn you Pervach believing in these particular so called "property rights"!
(I assume that is why yours was "different")

come out from under that bridge you troll! and tell me how many different possible combinations of votes you just grouped together into one label!