Copyrights Good, Patents Bad (Score 1)

I have a continuing argument with friends and colleagues where I claim that the world would not be that badly off with patents completely eradicated. I particularly despise business method and software patents, but think about it: why should a mere idea be deemed unique? One of the greatest "ideas" in the history of human civilization was the discovery of Calculus. And it was discovered by two people at around the same time (Leibniz and Newton). Today, it could be patented! (Algorithms are routinely patented). Just because I come up with an idea first doesn't mean that another one of the world's 6 billion humans could not come up with it. Sure, velcro and retractable seatbelts were both great ideas, but who's to say that somebody working on their own couldn't come up with it? Or what if they do, having never heard of the original invention? Why should they be penalized for failing to "patent" their own invention? Compare this with copyrights: What are the odds of two random people writing Beethoven's 5th symphony, note for note? Or two people writing the same 400 page novel, word for word? It's simply impossible. Copyrights really do protect original thought and original works that would not exist by the hand of any other author. Patents by and large protect semi-original ideas that could be discovered independently. Sure, the pharma companies spend billions on R&D and it can be argued that they would lose their incentive if patents went away. But the pharma companies still spend more money on marketing, and let's not forget that the government often pays a sizable chunk of R&D for many diseases (such as AIDS) that the drug companies then make a fortune from. Mike