Since it is impossible for the ownership of ideas to exist in nature, why then the rush on behalf of everybody to patent their ideas? Big enterprises, which have obtained huge intellectual property portfolios, do nothing more than make use of the monopoly in power the state is in possession of, to its own benefit. Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, for instance, made an effort to patent the “charge of a credit card through a click” procedure. He himself is well aware of the fact that it is foolish to attempt to acquire exclusiveness in a procedure (one presses the key of a computer keyboard and one’s credit card is being charged) but if someone who has the power (the state in this case) offers it to him as a gift, why turn it down? It is a preferential agreement like the ones offered to courtiers by their kings, (monopolies of basic products, i.e. salt) which he can make use of or resell. As a matter of fact it is permission from the state to issue banknotes.

The whole system related to intellectual property is following the same pattern. The state has the authority to distribute wealth and is also in possession of the mechanisms imposing this procedure. It may sound stupid, but all the same stupid were Middle Ages feuds, when kings gave away large territories, their populations included, to the nobility, weren’t they?

 

By Pashos Mandravelis.

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