You wouldn't download a yoga.

Oh sure a specific set of exercise or regime which has a specific effect on body can be a copyright or patent depending on the media and the way they are presented. Like people talking about Ashtang Vinyasa Yoga, Viniyoga, Kundalini Yoga all can be patented in a specific way e.g. [1], obviously need to pay lawyer fee and go to courts to determine later if it can be used to earn money when other party who need to pay do not agree. It waste resources, hamper growth and dissemination of knowledge.

If someone patented the Decimal System or Abacus or Gun powder or Pythogorus Theorem or Fibonnaci Series or Newton patented its laws of motion and anyone using this laws and formula's in any system needs to pay royalty not sure what weird world will be.

Human knowledge stand on the giant shoulders of others and patent and copyright with ever-greening and useless litigation are making it hard and difficult. Can't fathom someone can copyright a rectangle drawing and sue phone companies for launching rectangle phones.

[1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US8605152

Jeeze, that's one of the most egregious patents I've seen in a while. Hopefully it wouldn't stand up in a post Alice Corp world.

> Human knowledge stand on the giant shoulders of others and patent and copyright with ever-greening and useless litigation are making it hard and difficult. Can't fathom someone can copyright a rectangle drawing and sue phone companies for launching rectangle phones.

How is this even an argument, given that patents expire?

It is an argument given there is a concept of ever-greening. Also most of the time Patent system stifles the innovation it was designed to encourage [1]

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/patent-system-often-stifle...

> How is this even an argument, given that patents expire?

These days, many patented technologies expire faster than patents on them. In those cases, patents are quite literally halting progress.

Wait, are you saying that because technological progress is too fast, technological progress is slow?

Yes. It's because technological progress is fast in general, halting a particular avenue of development down can cause it to never be pursued again.

Technological progress isn't a line, it's a graph. Someone patents an invention and decides to sit on it, and by the time the patent expires, the entire technological environment has shifted around in a way which makes that invention worthless, and follow-up work unlikely to happen. Whereas, were it not for that patent, the invention would had people extending it further, perhaps generating even more immediately useful technologies.

In this way, a patent - in particular, a defensive patent, taken to prevent anyone from developing a technology that endangers your business - is closing off avenues of progress.