Good reference, thanks. I would add, for those that haven't read the Boldrin/Levine link yet, it only starts off with the myth of the lone inventor, but ultimat

Good reference, thanks. I would add, for those that haven't read the Boldrin/Levine link yet, it only starts off with the myth of the lone inventor, but ultimately tackles the modern pharmaceutical industry as well, which is probably the more modern intellectual monopoly defense. "It is often argued that the best case for patents is in the pharmaceutical industry. The fixed cost of innovation is large, with estimates of the average cost of bringing a single new drug to market as high as $800 million in current dollars... Indeed, according to industry surveys, the only industry in which patents are thought to play an important role in bringing new products to market is the pharmaceutical industry... The pharmaceutical industry is a complicated beast to vivisect, which can be approached from many contradictory angles and viewpoints. We will stick to ours, narrow that it may be, and ask - how strong is the case for patents in pharmaceuticals? Is there substantial evidence that without patents we would not have the medicines we have, or at least we would have a lot fewer and worse medicines? Would the industry shut down and talent move to some other, more rewarding, enterprise if patents on drugs were more or less abolished, that is, if the world became like Switzerland until 1978 or Italy until a year later?"