zlacker

I think it partly an ethical thing. Patents doesn't (most of the time) benefit society, they only create monopolies (which are about as helpful as those in many socialist countries, i.e. not very much).

I think Musk cares more about advancing electric cars than suing and squeeze profits out of patent monopolies.

>>sandst+(OP)
Don't know what you have against socialist countries(ie: most of the G7) but you definitely have monopolies in the U.S.

>>soperj+I2
The U.S. is a welfare state like most of the G7. The only variance is how the U.S. welfare state is implemented. We're absolutely not a Capitalist country; maybe 30 or 40 years ago we were still a mixed economy. It's about as far away from Capitalism as you can get before crossing over into Venezuelan style Socialism. The US Government has enough power, through numerous means, to directly control every aspect of the economy as it sees fit or if it cares to. The US flavor of Socialism, is going to be Fascism (or totalitarianism, or inverted totalitarianism; whatever the case, the vague generalities are understood).

We definitely have government protected monopolies though, no doubt about that. Tons of them in fact. From defense contractors, to telecom, to banking, to healthcare, and so on. Most major industries are filled with some variation of massive corporations protected from competition by the government.

>>sandst+(OP)
There's an argument that strongly protectionist policies are in fact very useful for developing an economy. Protect your own markets, but appropriate other's IP.

See Bad Samaritans by Ha-Joon Chang.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9781596915985-7