These geniuses seem to attack capitalism and lack of competition, and identify some extensions or uses patent and copyright (intellectual property), but they do not condemn IP per se. No one can ever clearly see the problem or strike at the root. https://t.co/jPzMozEwFn…
— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) December 21, 2025
Jonathan Tepper and Denise Hearn, The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition (2019)
These geniuses seem to attack capitalism and lack of competition, and identify some extensions or uses patent and copyright (intellectual property), but they do not condemn IP per se. No one can ever clearly see the problem or strike at the root.
See Grok: They do not oppose patent or copyright law. They criticize “extensions, abuses, and expansions of these laws as contributors to monopoly power (e.g., endless lobbying for longer terms, “patent trolls” in software, and regulatory barriers delaying generics after expiration), they explicitly support the core idea of granting limited-time protections to reward innovation and creativity. Their policy recommendations focus on reforms like enforcing strict time limits without extensions, encouraging competition post-expiration, and removing protections only in abuse-prone areas such as software and business methods.” Grok.
Some radicals. Just like the craven pro-IP statists in Congress–all of them, literally all of them–who whine about high pharma prices but do not suggest an obvious fix: abolish patents on drugs. Bernie Sanders never suggests this. Here is what they say on p. 246:
Patents and Copyright
To promote competition, patents and copyrights must only be granted for a limited time without extension.
Uh, they are granted for a limited time and cannot be extended. Stupid suggestion.
Innovation and creativity must be rewarded, but only for a limited time.
Why just the law grant IP rights, again? I see no coherent reason or argument.
Extending the life of patents, even through bureaucracy and regulation, is the granting of a private monopoly and the death of competition.
It’s the grant of patents that grants monopoly privilege and hampers competition, not their extension, genius.
Competition must be encouraged once patents expire.
If there is no patent, once it expires, you don’t need to “encourage” it, since the patent is no longer in force to block it! The question is why you would want there to be a patent in the first place.
Regulation, bureaucracy, and legal prohibitions have made it difficult if not impossible for many patients in the United States to get access to cheap, competitive generic drugs even after patents expire.
What about during the term of the patent? Why should the prices be so high then?
Faster approval of generics, and the importation of generics from Canada and Europe must be allowed to promote competition.
Duh.
Congress should remove patent protection for areas that are rife with abuse.
Abuse is not the problem. Patent Trolls, Bad Patents, and Incompetent Examiners are Not the Problem. The problem is use not abuse. As Burke said, “The thing! the thing itself is the abuse!”
Almost half of all patents are for things like software and business methods that have been abused by “patent trolls” who drive up costs for producers and consumers.
Okay. So if you want to end business method and software patents, why not other ones?
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