I'm guessing no vaccine is ever completely effective. But if everyone is vaccinated then the people whose vaccination didn't work are a lot less likely to ever be exposed to the disease.

Again, I was responding to your statement.

And all of the situations I described were possible outcomes if the law followed your reasoning. I understand that the current law does not go that far. However it is clearly right to compel people to go against their beliefs in SOME cases. So what makes it OK to discriminate in this case?

I think you vastly overestimate humanity if you think these are just straw men.

All the cases I imagined could, and in some manner likely would happen. Perhaps not as blatantly (the person might feel at least a bit of shame), but similar situations occur all the time.
Think about people doing their best to prevent certain groups from voting.
Or the way cops like to protect their own.
I do admit that the example with the doctor is a bit far fetched (at least I hope it it), but I can see homeless people being turned away - (helping someone that can't pay is wrong!).

All of those situations would now be completely legal. So even if an investigation uncovered them, what could you do - they were just following their conscience.

I was responding to your statement, which went well beyond the Indiana statute.

That would lead to some very strange situations.

A: So did you arrest the rapist?
B: No, that would have been against my conscience.

A: So how many people voted at your station?
B: None, they were all black so I didn't give them the ballots.

A: What happened to that gunshot victim you were operating on?
B: Oh he turned out to be a Jew so I just let him bleed out. It would have been against my conscience to save one of those.

If it's a hacker, then they already broke the law. So why bother adding another law?

Would the law also apply if Joe declares that he can only serve people that are satanists (due to his religion)? If it does I can see shops becoming quite a good jobs for lazy people - "My religion prevents me from serving you because you are human, sorry."

It only makes 20K only as long as the farmer owns it. When someone else buys it, they can bribe the local politicians to change the zoning and suddenly the land can make quite a bit more.

Wasn't there a study that found that placebos had positive effects even when the patients were told that they were placebos?

Isn't that more of a problem with the whole legal system, rather than a problem with patent reform?

Having a "loser pays" system in a "fair" system (where the side that has the law on their side actually wins) is fairer than not having that system. Because without "loser pays", the side that wins may be in a worse situation than if they had just given up in the first place (they may win 50k, but spent 100k on lawyers).

Think about the current system from the other side. A small company is sued by a big one over a frivolous patent. The small company may have the law on their side, but if they fight and win they will still be bankrupt.

I'm ok with that, as long as they also have to refund anyone that owns a copy of their game and still wants to play it.

But it seems companies are not doing it. They are just opening subsidiaries overseas and funneling all of their earnings to them. So why not force them to pay (just like everyone else) for the privilige of staying in the US?

If you don't want to pay taxes, then leave. Or stay and obey the law just like everyone else. And just think of the benefits if they do leave - the rest of the companies will no longer be forced compete against someone who skirts the rules and the US might even start making some sane decisions when it comes to IP.

Sure, we can stop taxing corporations. Just forbid them from doing anything with their money except funding their operation and giving dividends to shareholders. And tax capital gains when the shares increase in value, not when they are sold.

The company is free to leave the US and stop doing business there if they find the taxes too harsh.

What about the natural spread of custom genes?

If you buy seeds, and they happen to contain custom genes are you infringing patents? If your crops get pollinated by a neighboring field that has custom genes, do you have to pay license fees if you replant those seeds?