I read the article and only cried (quietly with tears). I'm going to plagiarize that sign ("Ayn Rand Was Right, Read Atlas Shrugged"), and start posting the city (right next to the Galt Post-It Notes). I want to see the AS publisher and printer make a fortune in reprints.

Funny, since I do own the programs that I create with my own resources. So at least someone owns software.

She can't have it!
If I can't own what I create with my own resources, I won't create it.

Programs can very easily be set to disable themselves after a certain event determined by their programmer(s.)
Everyone should think about that next time they are looking at their computer device.

That is a cynical view of the patent system, DrZarkov99, but it is quite accurate. This is yet another reason for all of us to shrug.

Nice plug for The Golden Pinnacle, straightlinelogic. It was my kind of book.

The problem I see is: Who counts and reports the votes? With the acknowledged corruption of those in power, I can't believe they'd ever do an accurate count, say, "Aw, shucks, we lost," and step down.

j_IR1776wg-- Daniel Durand.

you don't "own" it according to jan. She *needs* your program in order to run her business.

can you guys believe the anti-patent crap on an AR website? I am so disillusioned

In a similar way to how much a credit card with a huge borrowing limit can quickly improve the amount of stuff in one's life.

I have no problem with a trustworthy patent system. The one that exists in our current bureaucracy is not that.

I find it interesting that as a member of this Rand group you find it necessary to defend a product of a basically corrupt government. Revising the entire system that protects intellectual property is paramount to cleansing the botched bureaucracy we have inherited.

Infringement works, under the current system. The courts only listen so long as the lawyers are in court. Once the owner of intellectual property can no longer pay the lawyers, he loses.

I wish everyone understood that as clearly as you do.

It is likely that some of those who were not promised large subsidies did complain.

Thanks Star it's Gulchers like you who help keep me from giving up.

Sad but true. I wonder if there were any Capitalists who tried to block both?

+1 point given. As a programmer I worked for a large company. I wrote programs that saved the company millions. I was paid a salary. I do not own any of those programs. Unless there is a written contract to the contrary, that is the way it should be.
I also wrote a another program in my own house on my own computer during my own time. I own that program. That is the way it should be.

Your Lockheed example is a prime example of infringement. Why is it your friend's patent valid in your mind but others' not? That the system is geared to cronies is another story. Just because someone is a patent attorney does not nullify their objective reasoning, any more than a pathologist examining a specimen and finding cancer. Your reasoning would suggest they, too, have a conflict of interest. There are patent attorneys against patents. Stephan Kinsella for one. He is also an anarchist.
I am not a patent attorney, but db is one and we represent inventors seeking patents for their inventions. We are extremely conscious of the limited resources a small inventor has and the tremendous risk he undertakes in devoting significant time and money to the process. Our firm does not litigate. We champion inventors. http://www.hallingblog.com We are against any crony relationship between the government and private industry. We support an individual's right to purse inventing as a profession.
Rand strongly supported intellectual property and patents (man owns the products of his mind). Inventor, invention, patents are referred to in Atlas Shrugged over 200 times. She did not support the concept of anarchy. Anarchy is not conducive to capitalism. A modern Patent system is.

What did you do to warrant the ire of the Gulch elite?