Patent Rights

[The Lonely Rationalist]

I'll begin by quoting Ms. Rand here:

"Since intellectual property rights cannot be exercised in perpetuity, the question of their time limit is an enormously complex issue . . . In the case of copyrights, the most rational solution is Great Britain’s Copyright Act of 1911, which established the copyright of books, paintings, movies, etc. for the lifetime of the author and fifty years thereafter."

"The subject of patents and copyrights is intellectual property."

So my question is: Why can patents and copyrights not exist indefinitely? I always assumed the person who created something could keep it for his whole life, and after death could will it as any other property to an heir(s).

[DavidOdden]

So my question is: Why can patents and copyrights not exist indefinitely?

From CUI ch. 11:

Intellectual property represents a claim, not on material objects, but on the idea they embody, which means: not merely on existing wealth, but on wealth yet to be produced—a claim to payment for the inventor's or author's work. No debt can be extended into infinity.

Material property represents a static amount of wealth already produced. It can be left to heirs, but it cannot remain in their effortless possession in perpetuity: the heirs can consume it or must earn its continued possession by their own productive work. The greater the value of the property, the greater the effort demanded of the heir. In a free, competitive society, no one could long retain the ownership of a factory or of a tract of land without exercising a commensurate effort.

But intellectual property cannot be consumed. If it were held in perpetuity, it would lead to the opposite of the very principle on which it is based: it would lead, not to the earned reward of achievement, but to the unearned support of parasitism. It would become a cumulative lien on the production of unborn generations, which would ultimately paralyze them.