Vicky

You are probably right about the competition issue, but imagine where entrepreneurship would be if we didn't have a patent system! It is a protection for the person (business) willing to take a marketing risk.

It costs a bundle to develop a product, and it may or may not sale. If there was no means of protecting what one had created/invented, anybody might steal the idea anda mass produce the copycat product but with inferior qualities - making it fail to sell. (I hope I am explaining this well enough)

There are time restrictions on most patents - like most drug discoveries are something like 7 years. And when it comes to a life-saving thing (like GDNF for example), I think the lalw should be flexible to allow the product to be studied or used for furthering improvement.

But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's the potential blockbuster sale that attracts ideas.

Peggy