| | | Apple's claims are analogous to saying that the notion of software should only be practiced at the storage, RAM, and CPU level in a computer, and that the software shouldn't extend beyond the specific arrangement of bits used for its implementation on the storage along with the electricity needed to write the binary code pattern to it. Therefore, according to Apple, the cost of any software solution shouldn't much exceed the cost of the computer itself, and none of the intellectual effort of developing, writing and testing the software should be worth anything. Likewise, by this argument, pharmaceuticals shouldn't be worth more than the chemicals constitution the drug and the related chemical processes for their implementation; this would make most innovative pharmaceuticals worth at most few dollars for a course of therapy, nothing for the years of research effort, subsequent trials and regulatory registration and no real reason for any more money to go into research beyond a "good enough" effort in the future.
There may be people who do believe this deconstructive point of view, however this isn't commonly accepted in most industries, and the notion of intellectual property ownership helps to internalize and incentivize large investments into future invention. Protecting IP is even more important to advanced, industrialized economies for growth in the 21st century as intellectual efforts are one of the last scarce things in this world that demand some kind of incentivization. |
|
