I think probably the easiest starting point is recognizing that innovation iterates more rapidly than a century ago and shortening patents to perhaps 3 or 5 yea

I think probably the easiest starting point is recognizing that innovation iterates more rapidly than a century ago and shortening patents to perhaps 3 or 5 years. We need immediate bans on process patents like software and biotech (since finance patents are already banned, I believe? So this is not a big stretch). My gut feeling on iOS vs Symbian (running on similar hardware) is that if it's so easy to copy something like that, then iOS is only being propped up by the law anyway. It's probably not doing society much good overall. Maybe a route forward is to allow competition, but require that if hardware is licensed by something like the GPL, then some nominal fee would have to be paid to the rights holder. Society would have to vote on what that should be, and it would be across the board, perhaps 5% to 25%, something on the level of capital gains or VAT? It would be kind of like generic drugs, where other companies would have a hard time competing because typical profits margins might be in the 15% range, so they couldn’t afford to advertise. Otherwise my feeling now is that we’re actively encouraging monopolies and it just feels really anti-entrepreneurial.