Re:What3Words sends legal threat to security researcher for ...
by unityByFreedom on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @10:02PM
(#27058313)
> Eg socially by recognising their genius.
That's ripe for corruption. Social recognition would largely be in the hands of the wealthiest, i.e. the government in that scenario. You want individuals to be able to generate their own wealth so they can defend themselves. Patents, capitalism, etc are a means of delegating power to the people. Keeping all that control in the hands of the government is costly and less efficient.
It also hinders ingenuity, especially prominently displayed with software patents.
> [...] we give credit to creators and encourage creativity.
You can do that just fine without patents, too.
Eg socially by recognising their genius. But also more materially via trade secrets.
And as you say, people don't like banging their head against the wall over and over again, and that's true whether there's a patent system or not.