[thrmsforbfast]

> Patent == monopoly

For a very specific definition of monopoly (in particular, monopoly over use of a specific resource, not monopoly in the market sense).

In that same sense of the word "monopoly", private property == monopoly.

[baybal2]

Can you sell your house 20 times while still living in it?

[dragonwriter]

No,and you can't sell a patent 20 times and still own it.

You can rent your house out an AirBnB 20 times while still living in it, and you can non-exclusively license your patent 20 times.

[tracker1]

I'm pretty sure if I gave 20 concurrent AirBnB renters non-exclusive use of my house, they'd be pretty pissed off.

[dragonwriter]

Sure, OTOH, Disneyland can give ~85,000 paying guests concurrent non-exclusive use of the property with them being really happy with it. AirBnB being the wrong mechanism and/or your house being a suboptimal property for concurrent paid licensed use doesn't change the fundamental analogy between IP and real property.

[thrmsforbfast]

That's called an apartment building. Or a large house with many bedrooms. Both happen all the time.

In fact, just last weekend I let 20+ people into my house for a party. The notion of privately owned property didn't suddenly become absurd at the beginning of that party...

"Exclusive right to use" is not unique to intellectual property, nor is the ability to scale a piece of private property from 1 user to N concurrent users.

[pixl97]

At the same time you cannot tell your neighbor that they are not allowed to build apartments.

[dragonwriter]

And you can't tell people not to develop new patentable inventions, either.

You can stop them from infringing your patent, just as you can prevent your neighbor from building an apartment building on your real estate.