You can't prove a negative. I tried talking to Dale as peacefully as I could muster but he insulted me and refused to explain how a product of the mind fits the definition of property.

Woah. You're free to pursue the product of your mind with or without a patent. You will just get less profit without a modern patent system. And the constitution wasn't purely objectivist, unless you're willing to say that an objectivist form of government has been tried and failed.

that clause took a fledging nation to the most powerful in under 150 years. Watch as companies leave to find nations who vigorously protect intellectual property rights.

modern patent systems are NOT monopolies. Limited life, does not insure the owner the right to sell their invention

Dale is an Objectivist. support this statement!
"He just says what is already the case and never recommends an objective basis for an objective application."

no, you are an Objectivist who voted for Obama.
I do not perceive a problem. I perceive moochers. I understand that patent law must have a place in the information age. stick in the manufacturing age.

agreed

rejecting a modern patent system is a form of anarchy. It denies individuals the opportunity (right) to pursue the products of their mind. I am not name calling. If you are not an anarchist, stop supporting anarchistic ideas. Denying property rights which are the ONLY right enumerated in the original Constitution.
"The Congress shall have power ... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"

Objectivists reject all mysticism, which includes gods

I probably would seek to re-write it. Authors and inventors are currently lumped together as creators of "intellectual property", but there should be distinctions between the two as far as the legal status of their work is concerned.

I'm in favor of strong copyright and trademark protection, but not any form of patent protection. The difference, to my mind, is between protecting content (such as a literary work or trademark design) and granting an exclusive right to perform a process (such as a method for creating fire). There can be overlap between the two, but for the most part the division between content and process is clear, and should be reflected in the laws of a free society.

CBJ Article 1 Section 8 reads as follows as pertains to this subject "...To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for Limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their Respective Writings and Discoveries;..." In an Article V convention would you advocate for its removal? Or would you re-write it? I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on the subject esp. where you think they go it wrong. Thanks.

Yes, patents are an integral part of the Constitution. In this case, I think the Founders got it wrong. Patents entail the granting of a coercive monopoly over the performance of a process, backed by government guns. They have no place in a free economy.

My concept of “ownership” does not include forbidding someone else from doing something because I claim to have thought of it first. A person has the fundamental right to promote his/her own well-being by the application of knowledge obtained from others (unless constrained by voluntary contract, such as those protecting trade secrets), as well as from original thought and experience.

I’ll leave it for others to decide whether this makes me an “anarchist”.

How? By saying "you are an anarchist" to anyone who disagrees with your position on patents? Not all opponents of patents are anarchists. And name-calling is not a proper way to point out the differences between Objectivism and anything else.

Who is going to store payment information _inside_ the cookie ? That would be nonsense. A persistent cookie stores session persistence information, so that re-authentication is skipped. Private/financial information is of course obviously stored in the data storage, hopefully securely enough. Once the user is authenticated, it's a no brainer to retrieve the right set of information about him.

As for the whole idea of "1-click purchase", I agree with you, it's obviously in order to increase profit by skipping another important step : the time it takes for the user to reconsider a sale, therefore taking advantage of a lot more impulse buy moves, knowing that a large part of the customers won't bother to cancel after ordering, if they have a slight buyer's regret. Of course, I too always avoid that button.

Anyway, I did not introduce that worthless "1-click" thing in the thread, khalling did and seems to be fond of it, judging by how much he is clinging to it, ignoring everything else I'm writing (he's probably not a programmer, since he obviously does not understand anything to what I'm saying, preferring to utter "you give your opinion, no evidence" instead of popping google up and look up for references).

The fact remains that USPTO rarely assesses properly the validity of patent claims before granting patents, and most software patents, if not all, are simply too obvious and should never have been granted in the first place. The goal of the patenting system was originally to foster innovation by granting a limited monopoly of an original invention, in exchange for the information describing it, therefore ensuring it is not lost, and that others will make it evolve. This system is rapidly becoming dangerous, because it is becoming more rewarding to just rely on secret to keep a monopoly for a some time, while the competition tries to figure out the secret sauce. In case of software systems, the software _is_ the information, therefore patenting it is inadequate for all purposes, except for frivolous lawsuits (a programmer doesn't care whether what he creates has already been created somewhere else, only lawyers will twist facts to make it appears that he somehow magically copied -they use the word "stealed"- someone else). Besides, no software is ever truly original, there is always a whole spectrum of applications emerging in the same general direction, using the same basic algorithms and patterns.

Very likely correct, khalling.

Bad call, K. Like CBJ, I am an Objectivist. Like you, I believe that "intellectual property" (intangible property) can exist can be recognized in law. Unlike you, and like CBJ, I find not much rational or objective in US Patent Law. If you and Dale have any original ideas on this, you have yet to present them. Yes, I have read Dale's site and some of his essays. He just says what is already the case and never recommends an objective basis for an objective application.

I have been at this for 30 years writing about "property rights in cyberspace" and similar topics. I do not have a lot of answers, either. It is a difficult problem, at least for me. Perhaps you are smarter and have some answers. So far, you have not even offered a cogent question on intellectual property and US Patent Law but only defend the status quo.

... and I am not an anarchist...

Do not confuse cause and effect. Modern patents were invented in Venice: the city gave you a monopoly for your lifetime, and when you died, the patent went to the city. Venice was a great trading city, but not a center for innovation and invention. In fact, even the arithmetic of capitalism - double entry in Arabic numerals - came from Treviso, a little city outside of Venice that Venice absorbed. Doing so did not create a University of Business in Venice.

It is famous that America's competitive textile mills were built by Samuel Slater who brought the plans from England in his head. That story is known to hackers such as Joey Paris who rhymed:
"The source is the source,
of course of course
and no one can copy the source
of course
unless the source
can be carried in your head."

Three-fifths votes for slaves was also "integral to the Constitution." So what? You have offered only an appeal to authority not a fact independent from it.

no one understands the implications..yet

patent applications undergo rigorous and thorough review. I know, I sit next to someone who argues with the patent office daily. Patents cost thousands and take years to get through. You are also using an incorrect definition. Patents are not monopolies.
Am I to understand you promote patents granted in the manufacturing age but will call abstract inventions of the information age?
The law interpreted here is a mish mash of contradictory statements. how's this for example:
“But if what is new is not eligible, or improves the eligible, the claims as a whole is ineligible.”
All inventions are a combination of known elements

Patents are an integral part of the Constitution. As a matter of fact the ONLY right enumerated in the original Constitution. It is essential to Capitalism. If you cannot own the property of your mind, you are a slave. What is the philosophical basis for your assertion that patents are not property rights? The only logical basis I see comes from anarchy.In the History of the World we have only advanced technologically when a nation had a strong patent system in place.