Writing 09
Should intellectual property be afforded the same, more, or less protections than physical property? In today's world, do IP laws encourage or prevent innovation? With physical property, the lines of ownership are pretty much as clear as they can be. If you own a thing , then it's yours. You have the rights to use it and keep it, and others can't simply take it from you. Ownership over intellectual property is a much more complicated issue. How do we dictate who owns ideas? For "inventions," we have patents that people can own to protect others from benefitting monetarily from their ideas. I think the idea of patents is a good one that encourages innovation. Someone can have the confidence that a lot of time spent developing some new product/process/etc will be protected and that people won't be able to just steal the fruit of their hard work. The system isn't perfect, of course, and patent trolls are a perfect example of a big flaw in the system. Whi