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solarion's Avatar
Posts: 117 | Thanked: 32 times | Joined on Oct 2009 @ USA
#81
Originally Posted by SubCore View Post
and where do you believe products come from?
Raw materials, work.

couldn't be the company's intellectual property by any chance, could it?
Nope. Patents and trade secrets help produce things, but they're not required (see also, generic drugs). Trademarks and salesmarks help in marketing and branding, but not in production.

Copyrights are another kettle of fish altogether, and, as with patents, can both help and hinder.

But products have been made and sold since the beginning of time, with and without patents, trademarks, salesmarks, copyright, etc. (Trade secrets are kinda different because they'd exist with or without government intervention in the free market).

not to mention IP itself can be sold as a product... as in "licensing" something
Yes, however I'd argue that patents trolls are worse than leeches. And obscenely long copyright extension is entirely counter-productive.

And you must also prove that patents and copyrights being sold as a product, in the form they are right now, is actually beneficial to society. IMHO, they're currently detrimental to progress. I'd like to think that giving up our rights (which is what we do to provide copyright and patents) should give us back something, not stop progress.
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Umm, what?