[EricE]

>Execution is what matters, ideas are worthless by themselves.

Which is why patents are so critical to innovation. When done correctly, patents spur innovation that otherwise wouldn't happen. Why take a risk capitalizing on a new idea, figuring out all the ins and outs of it to then have someone swoop in and just clone all that work?

Do patents get abused? yup. Is that good? Nope. Does it mean we just throw the patent system out? Absolutely not! It means we fix the obvious holes in it and close some of the perverse incentives off.

Look at it this way - the US Constitution is a pretty short document for what it is - and there is a whole section on patents in there. Pretty high priority for the founding fathers.

A good overview of Federalist 43 and Madison's view on patents: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2389728