[pron]

> People who do groundbreaking research need to have a way of protecting their intellectual property...

Why? Because you want to give them incentives to invest in costly research that wouldn't pay off without a limited monopoly.

But what if research paid off even without such protection? And, more importantly, what if research is not even research at all, let alone costly?

I know little of other industries, but practically none of the recent software patents are a result of costly research, and therefore deserve no protection.