About all the clueless people talking about "patents and IP being wrong and harmful to society".

Please: SHUT UP.

The platform you're using is based on that very cornerstone. ARM, the company that enables everything we do on a daily basis with our NITs is entirely without material products. They design products, and license them. That's how the whole company works.

And there are many, many other examples. Tessera, Rambus, Qualcomm, just to name a few.

Unless you've worked with, or for one of these companies, you have strictly no idea how hard their job is. Their shares can plummet in a matter of hours, just because some patent is being reviewed. Suddenly, their shares can skyrocket because a jury overruled a previous patent thingy, and they lose millions because of that, because when the stock price changes so drastically, a lot of investors have a knee-jerk reaction that can generate catastrophic situations.

The only reason of existence of those companies? They love technology with a passion. They are those who create the greatest advancements. Those pure IP companies are the ones behind your fifty inch television, your PS3, mobile phone and whatnot. IP companies have one main advantage, they're not slowed down by manufacturing issues. They can keep on creating, and let other people figure out how to bring the product to the market, in one form or another. And what thank do they get for being the most avant-garde technologists in the world? Spit, insults, and bad reputation.

They get a "patent-troll" sticker slammed on their forehead, when really, the only thing they do is protect their main (and only) source of revenue. They invest ridiculous amounts of money into technology that may or may not work in the real world. Qualcomm has probably invested the equivalent of a few countries' GDP in the past 10 years, and they were lucky, it paid off. Over the past 20 years, Qualcomm's shares have exploded a gigantic 8000%.

After corporate banking, being an IP company is probably the riskiest business on the planet. So please, cut them some slack.

IP can be good or bad. No, the world is not going to change overnight, and people are not going to code for free, starting tomorrow. Maybe you've watched Fight Club or Star Trek one too many times, and you'd want to go to a new era of our civilisation where people just work to enhance our society, and get paid in flowers and merit, but things just don't work that way.

How many companies are 100% Open Source, and reward all of their workers fairly? Don't even mention Cannonical, unless you think £16k a year is a fair amount of money. Even the most fervent Open Source supporters have IP, because it makes sense.

If I take a picture, and someone else takes it, and claims he produced it, and makes $500 from showing it in an art gallery, would I not be in my right mind to sue him for fraud and copyright infringement, and either get him to give the money back, or get the money in his stead?

How is that any different from a patent? How is it wrong to protect something you developed, and make sure no one else is going to make a free profit from it? Why would anyone be allowed to make money of my invention, without paying me a fee, or have me share the revenue?