Yes, imaginary. There is no law of the universe that says that society should compensate you every time you have a brain fart. And that is exactly what's happening. Microsoft patenting Pg-Up and Pg-Down, for example. There are thousands of examples like that.

The problem with this discussion, as with many arguments, is that positions always become too polarized, and both sides end up appearing ridiculous. It's not a matter of absolute, but of degree. The current rights afforded IP owners are way beyond what is useful or necessary to promote progress in science and the arts. And that is the extent of congress's mandate, as spelled out by our constitution.

Walt Disney began his career by what today would be called plagiarism. He would go to jail for riffing on Buster Keaton. Today, a day care center can't paint Micky Mouse on the wall. That is f'd up.

Should we protect artists and inventors? Sure. Should we hand them and even their heirs lifetime monopolies every time they scratch their ass? Hell no. Microsoft has more money than any software company around. Where are the great innovations? We are victims of unadulterated hubris and greed, and we are getting our comeuppance.

Meaningful health care reform must begin with a serious look at society's willingness to grant long term monopoly rights to ideas. If that doesn't happen, all that's left is hand waving bluster, and we'll end up right where we started.

That is not my figure, I provided a link to the source. If the source is in dispute, take it up with the author. And provide your own counter evidence. My link is the number one google link for "pharmaceutical industry size". I realize that proves nothing. However, given the stakes, I'd imagine there would be plenty of people anxious to correct an error that large.

Big pharma makes so much money, that even _if_ the number is off by even a factor of a thousand, it does little to mitigate the main point: the pharmaceutical industry is ginormous. Such extreme concentrations of wealth do not benefit society; they cause great harm.

Funny you never read about this kind of thing in the MSM. Oh yeah, those giant conglomerations are also stakeholders in the imaginary property regime. A perfect storm of hubris, greed, and complicity.

I can't find any other site to back up my original site's claim of $300 trillion. Most other information I can dig up puts recent global sales in the $750 billion range. Which numbers are correct? I don't know.

Gosh, maybe big pharma isn't so big; after all, they may only be creeping up on a trillion dollars. Thank goodness, because I couldn't figure out what you even call the next big round number. Petillions?

Guess I shouldn't be so hard on the poor fellas.

I'm not "the liberal left". I'm just me. Ahem.

As for being anti-capitalistic, I am not. How is it anti-capitalistic to argue against government subsidized support of an industry?

Profits are great. I love 'em. Government sponsored monopolies that bequeath wealth completely out-of-proportion to people's contributions to society - well, I have a problem with that. And it's not because I hate Magic Johnson.

You are stuck in a mental rut. The world can be a better place than it is if you could find your way out of it.

It would take less money to develop pharmaceuticals if the formulas and techniques were not proprietary.

Patents are public for a reason - so other people can use them after your government sponsored monopoly runs out. That is society's bargain. You get _temporary_ protection, to encourage innovation, but those protections are supposed to run out.

The problem today is that the term of those protections is far too long. Also, protection is given on completely obvious or previously known techniques. You can fight to overturn ridiculous patents - but you are going to need a lot of money. Patent and copyright abuse, which is the norm today, stifles, rather than encourages, innovation.