[Borodog]

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Why does everyone not understand this simple concept? An idea is not bound to being in one physical location like a chair is. If I have a chair, it means everyone else does not have that chair. If I have an idea, it DOES NOT mean that I am depriving anyone else of posession of it.

You are confusing scarcity with rareness. An idea might be rare, but this does not mean it is scarce.

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I get that. But I still think people should have the ability to patent their ideas and have possession over them.

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The problem with patents is that the idea leads to ridiculous scenarios where nothing is done. Imagine if you had to pay a fee to the estate of Og, the inventor of the wheel, every time you wanted to build a device with a wheel. Now multiply that by every innovation in history. Nothing would ever get done. The solution is that patents only last a certain amount of time. But how much time? It's totally arbitrary. Property rights based on things that are totally arbitrary inevitably lead to conflict, which defeats the purpose of property in the first place.

Patents also act to destroy real property rights. If you claim that I cannot use my materials to build a wagon because you "own" the "idea" of the wagon wheel, you have obviously reduced my rigts in my own physical property. Destroying rights in tangible property in deference to rights in some completely itagible concept seems incredibly dangerous to me.

A patent is essentially a legalized monopoly granted by the state. If there is one thing that all economists agree on, it is that monopoly is bad for the consumer. "Idea monopoly" is bad it allows the monopolist to a) "rest on his laurels", i.e. not innovate to stay ahead of the competition, because potential competition is legally barred, b) charge monopoly prices, c) provide poor quality because there is no threat of competition, and d) invest more in patent protection litigation than is invested in innovation.

Even if one were to concede that all else being equal there would be absolutely less innovation in the absence of patents than with them (which I do not concede, there is no possible way to know this a priori because there are competing incentives that point in opposite directions and no way to ascertain which ones would "win" and under what conditions), that still would not justify the existence of patents, because there is no a priori "correct" amount of innovation. We cannot conclude that because there would be more innovation that this somehow justifies the granting of idea monopolies, any more than the idea that subsidizing research increases the amount of research done somehow justifies the subsidy.

Finally, the idea that entrepreneurs and businesses would simply throw up their hands and not innovate to stay ahead of the competition is, quite frankly, farcical to me. What are they going to do, sit on their capital and not invest it? Not try to turn a profit? Not attempt to beat out the competition? Whatever entrepreneurs and businessmen where that stupid would indeed stop innovating, rapidly go out of business and be replaced by entrepreneurs and innovators who chose not to sit on their hands and bitch that someone else "stole their idea".