Yeah, agreed re: drugs. Given the current state of the industry, "How do you develop drugs without patents?" is a legitimate question. As I said in my PP, I think it's more of an indictment of the industry than a good example for why we need patents. But yes, I agree, drug patents are the best leg patent proponents have to stand on. I still think drug patents should be massively weakened, but it's a longer argument.
> Should we prejudice a modern inventor just because he implements his useful machines in a virtual question, they ask, with the implicit response hopefully being no.
If the sentence starts with "Should we prejudice a modern inventor just because...", the answer is probably "Of course not!" because it's such a loaded way to phrase it. Just saying.
But your larger point is well taken; I understand that this is exactly the analogy used in court decisions that end up being pro-patent. "Even though the method of implementation of ideas has changed, the spirit of the original concept of patents still stands true, as it has historically." But my takeaway from looking at basically the same evidence is "Patents weren't a very good idea in the first place, and now they're a really bad idea because times have changed because of software and the patent-industrial complex has made the software business worse for the little guy."
> Should we prejudice a modern inventor just because he implements his useful machines in a virtual question, they ask, with the implicit response hopefully being no.
If the sentence starts with "Should we prejudice a modern inventor just because...", the answer is probably "Of course not!" because it's such a loaded way to phrase it. Just saying.
But your larger point is well taken; I understand that this is exactly the analogy used in court decisions that end up being pro-patent. "Even though the method of implementation of ideas has changed, the spirit of the original concept of patents still stands true, as it has historically." But my takeaway from looking at basically the same evidence is "Patents weren't a very good idea in the first place, and now they're a really bad idea because times have changed because of software and the patent-industrial complex has made the software business worse for the little guy."