The "shoulders of giants" argument is always refuted with hyperbolic rhetoric about theft, IP's importance and how were going to KILL innovation if they don't have these monopolies/taxes to promote something that the free market already provides ample incentive to produce. It's obviously an argument that works for those that benefit from the successful departure from rationalistic laws.

I like to ask just how much should every company that uses computers for dynamic inventory tracking (thats every retailer still in business today) owe Wal-Mart? They seem to have somehow survived without these protections. These are the "process" that made them larger than most of the governments of the world. But JUST IMAGINE how much BETTER they would have done if they HAD patented and extorted K-Mart and Target out of billions every year.. Think of the benefit to society!! We wouldn't have to think about where we wanted to shop!

It actually seems that it's the FAILED companies that were unable to establish market presence that we see on the docket representing "the little guy". The IP patent proponents looooove to point to the little guy!! So IP acts as a bail out of failed companies? Wait.. what about the patents that cover entire industries? When patenting a procedure that gives one company exclusive rule over an entire industry (like nobles of the dark ages), what does that company owe to society in the form of representation?

Reality, the vast majority of litigable patents are held by the Wal-Mart's of the world, increasingly held by lawyers that literally contribute NOTHING to society and MOST innovators are harmed by the taxation without representation that has become the patent industry.