> Ask inventors, who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the
law (at least for patents). While this is a common
misconception, inventors are not the intended beneficiaries of
patent law. Patent law is supposed to benefit the public, by
incentivising invention and encouraging inventors to publicize
the workings of their inventions. Benefiting inventors is only a
side-effect, not the goal. (How well it accomplishes that goal,
and whether the cost in liberty was justifiable in the first
place, are debatable; however, that is an argument for another
time.) While inventors may have some input to offer on the
effectiveness of any given incentive structure, it is the public
which pays the cost of these patent monopolies, ostensibly
implemented for their benefit, and which should have the
ultimate say regarding both their existence and their form.