[afternooner]

The system is working perfectly, if you subscribe to the belief that you can own an idea. If an idea can be property, and you can control how your property is used and distributed just like any other property you own. I can not make a product, but simply licence it's use. A middle man is after all the bulk of capitalism. The patent trolls are a solid business model, and the system isn't broken. Again, this is only if you subscribe to the notion that an idea can be owned.

I don't think you can own an idea, actually I know you can't. But we create an artificial and abstract environment in order to put real world constraints on things that simply cannot be contained. It's why we get all these stupid laws, and why they don't work. They are trying to do the impossible.

A corporation is not a person, an idea is not property. But it will take a revolution to change that, and I'm too lazy to start it.

[dreamdu5t]

The cognitive dissonance is somewhat disturbing to witness. People decry patent trolls while simultaneously supporting patents. Everyone agrees that excluding others from building a fire because you "own" the process of building a fire would be ridiculous - yet will turn around and apply that same logic to defend patents and copyright.