It talked about many historical cases where the patent and copyright system failed and as well historical evidence of free market providing immense innovative pressure.
Just because an argument is in the extreme doesn't mean it have any merits whatsoever. Sometime, it have lot of merits.
For example, James Watt use the patent system to force his competitor away from the market, instead of using his time to invent. When his patent expired, Watt got rich anyway!
The early American book publishing industry benefited immensely from book piracy of British authors. British authors got paid anyway, sometime even better than the royalty rate they receive at home!
The movie industry moved to California to escape Thomas Edison' movie patent.
Just because an argument is in the extreme doesn't mean it have any merits whatsoever.
Perhaps, but my specific problems with this article is that I don't think it advances the argument in any meaningful way, and it doesn't provide evidence for its conclusion---other than a single example of a patent troll, and the claim that an NYT story about another company promotes an "urban myth".
The general problem with sweeping statements is that they very susceptible to attack because they lack the precision you need to build a proper argument.
I would add that a sweeping statements will need a book to build a proper argument, not just a two page article.
Actually, stratch my statement about Watt getting rich. The source I read indicate that Watt was able to kept the price of his steam engine up by the virtue of being first even after the patent expiration. It is still true that he use legal forces to keep his many inventive competitors at bay. http://mises.org/story/3280
So he still have a competitive advantage after the fact that the patent expired. It is what people refer to as "first mover advantage".
It might be helpful for you to read the book "Against Intellectual Monopoly". http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.ht...
It talked about many historical cases where the patent and copyright system failed and as well historical evidence of free market providing immense innovative pressure.
Just because an argument is in the extreme doesn't mean it have any merits whatsoever. Sometime, it have lot of merits.
For example, James Watt use the patent system to force his competitor away from the market, instead of using his time to invent. When his patent expired, Watt got rich anyway!
The early American book publishing industry benefited immensely from book piracy of British authors. British authors got paid anyway, sometime even better than the royalty rate they receive at home!
The movie industry moved to California to escape Thomas Edison' movie patent.