24: Patents & Intellectual Property

Patents - Why talk about such a boring subject you ask? Because sometimes the most mundane things can have a large impact on your everyday life, and Patents are one of those things. Patents have extensive effects on things like the features and types of phones you can buy, the monopoly prices of medicine, and the scope of scientific progress. We start with the moral defense of patents and weigh the idea of knowledge as defensible property. Then we address the practical claim that patents encourage innovation and are thus justified by their benefit to society. We then point to a variety of ways that patent laws create a legal game which actually hinders innovation and distorts the market.  Finally, we argue that the moral problems with intellectual property guarantee the practical problems because a system that doesn’t get human nature and natural law right will not work.  

Music: Beauty Flow by Kevin Macleod