Boo

Failure rates for books are much higher than for drugs. And the cost of developing/writing a book is much higher than expected profitability even with an extended copyright.

Ridiculous.

Apple Patents Wedge Design

Vis a vis European vs US patent law, I agree with Henry. There are a lot more similarities than differences.

People who want to criticize the patent system really, really need to understand the difference between a design patent and a utility patent, lest they look like complete morons when read/heard by those of us who do.

Is it generally accepted by those that dislike the patent system in its entirety that they have far less distaste for copyrights?

Magic: the Gathering patented the act of turning a card sideways to indicate that it has been used....

I would have to see the patent to be certain but I would hazard it is not a valid patent. There are a few well known patents that were granted that never should have been. This isn't a problem with patent law so much as a staffing issue.

Here's the patent if you're interested:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=ixo...ed=0CDMQ6AEwAA

It hasn't been challenged in court, probably because it's so easy to get around. Other games' rulebooks just say something like "mark cards that have been expended in any convenient way, such as changing their orientation, putting tokens on them, etc..".

Clown as in me? How am I pro theft? My motivation is fairly simple, all I want is be able to not get copyright protection on some work I have created. That's not possible here ... lol IP law.

I also think that patents are idiotic, that humans learn via copy+improve and that noone has a right to profits.

The fact that "upvoting" can be patented is pretty much a joke. I don't buy this "well the system doesn't work we can agree on that" weaksauce because idiotic stuff like these patents are the direct result of patents existing.

I am an artist and I do create stuff that could be IP protected so this topic is somewhat relevant for me.

Also...magicians!

There needs to be a variable excess profits tax on monopolies. Government grants these monopolies. The U.S. taxpayers should get something back.

Public funding... Voluntary donations... Perhaps hospitals can pay into R&D like an insurance plan in exchange for cheap medicine later on... Idk, I'm just me and haven't thought about this much. But what I do know is:

The possibilities are endless, all we need to do is set the marketplace loose on the project and millions of intellects greater than mine will be unleashed trying to solve this problem.

Also, I whole heartedly reject the assumption that these medicines wouldn't get developed in due course anyway. At best the current profit arrangement speeds up the process, but of course it may also delay it sometimes.

Scientific progress is inevitable if we just let humans be humans. It's quite possible we'd get many more scientific breakthroughs and achievements in an atmosphere of worldwide cooperation rather than profit oriented competition.

And you'd be wrong

Things like polio vaccine almost certainly would. Things like viagra and whatever the thing that cures toenail fungus, probably not.