[forgotpwtomain]

It's a tricky subject. The argument from the patent side is that if these companies could not patent their technologies / products, they would not be willing to invest nearly as much in development and this would generally hurt human progress.

On the other-hand if you look at big companies like Apple, Facebook the amounts the are investing in genuine human progress is truly paltry compared to their net-worth, and what they are patenting is often ridiculous, generic and clearly not in any way conducive to human progress.