Danny Sauer wrote:
> If someone else can make the same product for less money, then
> it seems that the inventor perhaps lacks the "business accumen" to
> compete in a free market.

But the inventor is burdened with the cost of inventing, whereas the copycat
may have a lower cost.  It's not fair if the inventor pays for research that
leads to ideas for a better gizmo if someone else can look at this gizmo and
sell it cheaper because he doesn't have to pay back the cost of the
research.  Put another way, without patent protection there is no mechanism
for the price of a product to reflect the research that went into coming up
with the idea for it.  In such a system, people will be very reluctant to
invest in research that might lead to new product ideas if they are pretty
much guaranteed to be out-competed once the product goes to market.


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