First of all, your analysis shows a lack of understanding the basis of property law. Property law is based on creation. The creator is the reason something exists and therefore the property owner. The law is recognizing that metaphysical fact.
1. patents are based squarely in Locke's formulation of property rights.
2. If I in some crazy world created a laser without any other knowledge one had been created, that does not make me the inventor. The RATIONAL answer is 1st person is the inventor. and rationally, we want there to be strong property rights because that's the way they get the investment for development. All these so-called simultaneous inventors or later independent inventors almost certainly actually had knowledge of the invention. If I create my own laser independently, I have not added to the world's store of knowledge. Heard the phrase "re-invent the wheel?" Economically, we don't move forward by having people re-create stuff. We move forward when new technologies are created.
3.Your whole psychological jealousy/love/lack of self-esteem/ own and control of others sounds more like Marx than Rand and Locke.
4.The idea that the computer industry arose out of some free love concept is a complete myth. There is no macro-economic evidence to support that proposition. Those countries with the strongest IP laws are the most technologically advanced. Those with the weakest, are the most backward.
5. A patent should not and does not cover the exact implementation of your invention. It covers what you teach, the knowledge that you provide-rationally, you should not be able to profit off of my developed knowledge without paying. The priority of date only extends to the knowledge from the first one. so any claims based on knowledge that was old (expired patent) would no longer be valid, regardless of the priority. Xerox was only able to do this, due to disruptive inventing.
I am only going this far in your post because not only do I disagree with most of your points, they are wrong and stem from a lack of understanding of how property rights work.

"The proud (arrogant, in fact) creative people in the Homebrew Computer Club came together to show off their work. They shared ideas by implicit trade. Those who had something cool were highly regarded. It made the computer revolution possible. However, it was not to last."

Why do you say it was not to last? There's a huge open-source software and hardware movement. Many products run Linux. I learned on a TRS-80, but today kids are playing with Arduino, open source hardware.

If you have a case, though, where open source doesn't apply, where you're going to put millions of dollars into a new technology, shouldn't you be able to protect it?

He makes some good points Khalling lol.