For HN readers, the premise is certainly not new. The failures of our IP protection system (patents and copyrights) are continually exposed in the literature

For HN readers, the premise is certainly not new. The failures of our IP protection system (patents and copyrights) are continually exposed in the literature and in the courtroom. What we don't see is any movement towards substantive change. The latest revision, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-Smith_America_Invents_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-Smith_America_Invents_Ac...), made significant changes at one level (e.g., first-to-file replaced first-to-invent) but did not address any of the fundamental issues. For example, just what constitutes a patentable invention remains cloudy. See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Corp._v._CLS_Bank_Int%27l https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Corp._v._CLS_Bank_Int%27... Patents in the US are constitutionally mandated. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of the United States Constitution grants Congress the power "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." These days it is not clear that the patent law, as written and practiced, actually fulfills the constitutional mandates and promotes the "progress of science and the useful arts". For amusement, Google "stupid patents" or "silly patents" and follow the links.