It’s always been curios to me that the author or inventor or artist doesn’t own the rights to their work for all time. Why do these things expire?
In: Other
Most of the responses are spot on but I’ll add one more tidbit to explain why IP expires for patents. And that’s the trade off between patent and trade secret. If someone wants to keep access to IP forever, then they go the trade secret route and take the risk that the trade secret leaks out. If they want guaranteed exclusivity to practice the trade secret, then they request the patent, but trade off is that they lose exclusivity after 20yrs.
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