Hacker News Reader

Would you count patent protections as technical or legislative? Patents are supposed to be used only to encourage technological progress, but all too often they screw up the competitive landscape on an entire market in ways that are obviously unfair. If we could reform our patent system to get rid of software patents and raise the bar for physical inventions, then it might be okay to say that technical advantages [protected by patents] are fair.

View on HN

This is sort of a divisive issue for Libertarians. On the one hand, patents extend the reach of Capitalism into new places, which some libertarians who are reflexively pro-Capitalism like. On the other hand, patents are government restrictions on what you can do with your property, so more consistent (imho) Libertarians tend to be against them.

I would personally list patent protections as legislative. There was an article posted to HN recently about patents and what I took away was that they do little to protect someone who isn't a large corporation. I believe this is related to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2034262 , patents (in any form not just software but also physical) are just another way to prevent a free market from forming. And libertarianism is based on a firm belief in the free market.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com