But as much as it can help the little guy get started, it’s used much more to keep the little guy from improving on what WORLD CONGLOMERATE A, LLC is doing.

Actually, I probably don’t know enough about it all to have an opinion. So I think I’ll just go have an onion instead.

I almost can’t understand patents and trademarks, they’re somewhat counter-productive to capitalism in general, as they pretty much say “Hey, good job inventing something, now you’re the only one who can make it so there will be little drive for improvement.”

The arguement against that, I suppose, is that if there was no guarantee that a company would make money off of a product, why would they put the cash into developing it in the first place.

“Hogpog,” said a famous American magickian (mah ji kee un), “as long as there is a population willing to buy something, there will be money to be made from companies. All that eliminating patents would do is increase the competition and make it harder for a company to invent something and then sit on their ass for the next 100 years soaking up the rewards while no one is allowed to improve on their product except by inventing a whole new way to do it.”

Check out this story about a company who has the patent for JPEG.