Funny how at the start of the US patent system toward the end of the 18th century, patents expired in 28 years. Back then the pace of innovation was glacially slow compared to today. Today, when technological progress happens several orders of magnitude faster, patents now expire in only 28 years. Thanks to Disney, copyrights can last even longer. We live in a truly amazong world! How about 5 years for patents and for trademarks 5 years or as long as they're actively being used?

Remove the monopoly and ordinary letters and postcards will cost several dollars to send. A better idea is for the USPS to start raising rates substantially, at least 30% per year, on 3rd class mail (catalogs & junk mail), most of which is the postal equivalent of spam, which is now sent at well below first class letter rates. Since the purveyors of those exciting offers and unbelievable bargains have no alternative means of distributing their waste paper (they're already using the net, too), they'll pay the higher rates or quit spamming our postal mailboxes. Considering that over two thirds of what hits my mailbox now is 3rd class mail that I simply recycle, the extra cash and/or reduced volume should help the USPS financially. I'd be willing to pay for the occasional paper-based catalog I really want in exchange for decreasing the quantity of junk.

Late last November I mailed half a dozen Christmas packages to several relatives & friends in Germany via priority mail & first class (depending on weight). USPS was barely cheaper than the commercial carriers, since "parcel post" no longer exists for international (to Europe, anyway). I was told it would take a week to 10 days for them to be delivered. The first package arrived New Year's eve; the rest at various times in January. For an extra 10% or so, they would have arrived in less than a week.

This spring a friend with a small business sent a bid in to a US Government agency via USPS express "guaranteed one day delivery." He verified with the clerk at the post office that the destination (downtown in a large city less than 250 miles away) was included in the delivery guarantee area. Since the deadline for bids was in 2 days, he figured he had a margin in case it took an extra day. It took 4 days. No refund was offered under the "guarantee." When the winner was announced he found he would have had the winning bid. Another former USPS customer is born.

For him to get fired, someone there would need to have some sense. Good luck finding that among most executives of big media.