Yes, patents stopped fulfilling their societal contract decades ago. I do no think anything critical necessarily relies on them being a thing. As for copyright

Yes, patents stopped fulfilling their societal contract decades ago. I do no think anything critical necessarily relies on them being a thing. As for copyright, though.... a large part of the downsides lie with having to do bookkeeping and such. I'd argue for a total elimination of copyright, only keeping some very basic anti-plagiarism clauses (don't copy and then claim it was you who did it). They have to rely on intent, however. Accidentally reciting a joke and thinking you came up with it has to be very far from the grey zone. Trademarks are a vehicle for reputation and trust in a market, see e.g. how you can't buy poor quality tools branded "Knipex", or how Samsung is know to not employ overly deceptive branding/advertising for their portable flash media, along with being known for at least decent reliability.