I do not think that the whole patent issue is one of scale. It's one of principle. Nothing and no one should be allowed to own ideas, formulas, algorithms, gene

I do not think that the whole patent issue is one of scale. It's one of principle. Nothing and no one should be allowed to own ideas, formulas, algorithms, genes or molecular arrangements. Besides - and I've argued this countless times in the past - most medical research is already funded by the government. So it's not like innovations in medicine would suddenly grind to a halt. Maybe we'd see less useless shit like the newest "Anti-Aging" creme or other complete wastes of money. Here's another fun fact: only about 15% of the income of the big pharma concerns actually goes into research. Most of it goes to advertisement. How in all hell is that a good use of money? Furthermore, this system incentivices the utterly wrong things, and this remains my strongest argument against patents especially in pharma. You aren't encouraged to find cures, things that stop the cause of a sickness. The most profitable way is to find treatments for symptoms, which bind the patient to your meds, often for a long time, possibly until death. The best example would quite likely be AIDS. This is nothing less than completely, totally, absolutely, irredeemably and unexcusably fucked up.