[stretchwithme]

When the pioneer goes out into the wilderness and establishes a farm, doing the hard work of removing stumps and planting a crop, he has added to the value of that land and deserves to have ownership recognized and protected.

The freedom of others to wander the wilderness, eating whatever they find is taken away. But it is reasonable to curtail it, because agriculture is very productive compared to the hunter gatherer approach. And it is just that the one that plants should be the one that gets to eat the results or trade it for the work of other people.

Its also reasonable that when it takes time and effort to develop a solution to a problem that the one solving it should be able to derive financial benefit from it.

If we don't want people to grow food, live in houses or build Disney Land, we should eliminate physical property rights. And if we don't want people to invent smart phones, cures for cancer and televisions, we should eliminate patents.

Why should we curtail the humans freedom to go anywhere they please? Or sell any device they decide to make?

For the very same reason that we recognize each other's rights to begin with. Because it is in our mutual self interest to do so.

I could just eat the people around me for dinner, but when I recognize their right to exist, to speak freely, to have property, a whole world of commerce and culture becomes possible. And that benefits me. In fact, my food is actually easier to get.

And so it is with intellectual property. Or should be. Whatever rules we use, they should be promoting our mutual well being.

[dkl]

> And if we don't want people to invent smart phones, cures for cancer and televisions, we should eliminate patents.

I reject this. Software, which is a component of all of the things you mention, didn't always have patents, and it flourished without them.

[stretchwithme]

I think patents make sense when it is our mutual self interest to have them. If something is more abundant without them, then it makes no sense to patent that thing.

The statement you are rejecting was a general one. There can and should be exceptions based upon the evidence.

Which suggests we should actually vary the length of patents experimentally to obtain the evidence.

[stretchwithme]

Even within the software realm, it makes sense that some things be patentable and others not.

For example, if you create translation software that requires a lot of resources to develop, patents probably makes sense.

But in other things, patents are an obstacle. For example, technologies that connect people and organizations that must be agreed upon to work and where establishing a common language is more valuable than could be obtained by simple adoption by an individual.

Think HTML and HTTP and TCP/IP. Similar technologies that were controlled by companies suffered because they were controlled by companies. Their attempts to charge a toll impaired adoption. The incentives lead companies to not connect, to differentiate and not agree.

So when people point to the Internet as an example of why government should be making technology choices, what they are really pointing to is an example of inappropriate patenting that could only be overcome by an entity with more interest in seeing the thing succeed than in charging a toll.

In other words, precisely the set of interests people would have if a patent did not apply in this situation.