* copycats would have significantly lower costs without
      any offsetting disadvantages, and
    * what's being patented would not be independently
      re-discovered before the patent's expiration

I think the core disconnect is whether those two points are taken as true or false: you get the imagery of some lone heroic inventor being always crushed by some conglomerate that patents could save him from; a more accurate version would be a bunch of small businesses that keep doing cool things at more-or-less the same time which the conglomerates pick up on after a year or two, and nobody has the concept of going broke on legal fees arguing over who's allowed to do what.

> Yeah, these monopolies make sense if I have to set up a plant, or do years of research, but that's not true in software anymore.

The hard part of software is figuring out what to do, reimplementing a program is easy (thus the prevalence of programs that are "clones" of other programs). If patents actually worked, I think software would probably be a nearly-ideal example.

I cannot yield to your economic reasoning, as I already reject it.

I will be happy though, to read more economic history and dig into it more, as soon it somehow fit into my budget and time.

Patents will not increase innovation, and they shift activities from secret invention to invention whom designs are easily reverse engineered.

When the industrial revolution was in full swing in England, there were many steam engine inventors that were working on it, but they keep getting in the ways of each other. Instead, inventors, especially James Watt, ligate rather than improve or manufacture their design. Since their work are built on each other, steam engine tech proceed much more slowly. After the repeal of Watt's patents, engine production increased dramatically.

Why do you already reject his reasoning?

His reasoning is flawed based on the fact of taking into account only capital cost, but the cost of using humans to develop it. The cost of development has to exceed the cost of duplication. Therefore, it does make not sense that patents are useful in more capital enterprises because the relative costs of development versus production are similar.This is my economic reasoning.

On empirical evidence, his reasoning does not simply match. Moreover, invention and inventing are not the begin and end process of innovation. Innovation is much broader than that. It is also about marketing, finding out people need certain products and so on. Inventions, by themselves are useless without entrepreneurs turning it into a business. If there are only one entrepreneur for one inventions, than it might just fail in the marketplace. What if the inventions satisfy no needs? The process will simply be slower, be plagued with ligation and so on.

Big companies do not alway win, nor are they able to copy everything with efficiency, and nor do they recognize all business opportunities.

Why do you need to read and dig more if you're already decided on the issue?

As much as I am sure of what I believe in, I taken the maxim "When you meet Buddha, you kill him" seriously. My position on intellectual property is very strong, thus it will be a continuous target of refutation. If my arguments are well supported, but in fact wrong, than there is no one to convince me that in fact, I was wrong.

Though, the more I read, the more I am convinced on my positions that we should go ahead and abolish the system altogether.

It'd be fun to think about how one could architect a patent system where the duration and scope of a patent is based on the capital costs that went into developing it as well as the capital costs required for a clean room implementation (still seems silly that a patent can affect somebody else from coming up with the same idea independently).

People have discussed if natural rights applied to patent rights. Some argued not so, and some thought so. This has been going on since the age of enlightenment.