> I could just as easily say "free-riding off somebody else's ingenuity is fundamentally unfair". You could, but it would be ludicrous. The very existence of h

> I could just as easily say "free-riding off somebody else's ingenuity is fundamentally unfair". You could, but it would be ludicrous. The very existence of human civilisation is due to "free-riding off somebody else's ingenuity". > And how often is something in software not been built by simply copying somebody else's ideas? Who cares. Not copying ideas is not the purpose of patents, it's the exact opposite. > On the other hand, there are studies showing that having patents increases the chances of software startups get VC funding Again, irrelevant. Getting startup funding is not the purpose of patents. If you want the role of patents to be to help startups then that should be their stated role. In which case, you'd probably only allow companies <5 years old to hold a patent, they'd only be valid for 5 years, and ownership could not be transferred. Of course then you have something very different from our current system, but frankly it sounds a lot better.