🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <48185@netnews.upenn.edu> yee@mipgsun.mipg.upenn.edu (Conway Yee) writes:
>In article <1991Aug13.183216.19588@agate.berkeley.edu> jbuck@forney.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck) writes:
>>
>>I think that inventors should be rewarded, but granting them a state-enforced
>>monopoly for a couple of decades is a bit much.
>
>Doing away with patents is next to impossible.  One of the provisions of
>the Constitution is a requirement that Congress set up a patent and a 
>copyright system.  While the duration of the patent/copyright is not
>constitutionally determined, its existance certainly is.

I'm a little suprised that I've seen noone suggest the obvious compromise
of shortening the length of the monopoly.  Thus the person with the idea
gets a headstart, but not a lockout of everyone else.  The current length
is longer than the length many modern technologies are used before something
else replaces them.  Something on the order of five years might make more
sense.
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I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.