Really then why is north korea or the middle east not full of inventors and great inventions.

If you can't read please stay off the post.

Sure, people invent all kinds of things without having some monetary wish for their efforts. Many improvements are made just to improve something that has a patent knowing that the improvement will not gain a patent topping that of the original patented thing. The patent holder can refuse to use the improvement.
Did you ever see objects with patent pending on them for years with no patent having been granted. Most inventions by individuals, not paid for by a company, are due to seeing a problem and doing something about it. I sometimes invent mathematical objects just for the fun of it. Some individuals who work for businesses create inventions because it is part of their job descriptions and not because they expect a patent and to get wealthy from the effort. Academics do it all the time in order to get credited in published papers. Very little of the invention without the wealth incentive is done for altruistic reasons, but for the pleasure of solving a problem and possibly to get a job done with the invention.
I would say that those who invent little obvious things like an extra slit in cardboard and then patent it so that anyone who wants to sell something with that so called invention has to pay a royalty for each sale enforced by the heavy hand of government, are pretty much moochers.
Do you write books just because you think you might get rich from their sales? Only a few authors can do that and the rest do not have a chance of getting back a profitable return on their time. Some like the pulp writers just wrote and collected a few cents a word and never became wealthy. Writing should be to pleasure the writer and secondly for any pleasure of the reader or the changing of opinions or furtherance of knowledge, etc. Writing can clarify ones own ideas and perhaps point to new directions in ones thought. I would guess that most writing is done without ever having a copyright being registered in the name of the writer, but rather in the name of the one who hired the writer.

Someone also said that the man who created fire was probably burned at the stake by the benefactors of his invention.

Guess who?

It is a disaster for inventors, but great for big companies and other countries.

There is nothing that title to land protects without a lawsuit.

Yes, it is only good in the country granted and that is absurd.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE FOR THIS "People continue to invent things regardless of the sometimes difficulty and cost of getting a patent and depend on the patent pending provision to keep others out of exploiting the invention for a period of time."

There is nothing that a patent protects without filing a law suit. A patent, only through the use of government force (law), allows the government to exclude others from certain actions with respect to an invention. It only is applicable in the country where granted, so does not protect from those outside the country from producing and selling the invention which will be only prohibited from being sold in the country where the patent was issued. It does not permit anything like selling the invention which remains free for the patent owner to do.
People continue to invent things regardless of the sometimes difficulty and cost of getting a patent and depend on the patent pending provision to keep others out of exploiting the invention for a period of time. A patent requires the public disclosure of all details about the invention and can not be as strong as trade secrets to keep another from copying the invention exactly especially if the invention involves some publicly unknown processes.
If wealth of an individual is related to the amount of property that can be created and or gained by the individual, then patents, which tend to keep prices high, will possibly decrease the possible wealth due to the lack of competition in producing the patented invention.
As for copyrights, best to not publicly publish the invented prose since anyone who reads it will have reproduced it as a copy withing his brain. That is what a copyright gives a person by prohibiting a copying of a work without permission: just the prohibition of that mental copy never to be related to others without getting permission from the owner of the copyright. History shows that most works are done regardless as to whether a government will protect the work or not, just as the those on this blog show that there is more to creativity than a possible monetary return. All of this stuff here is protected regardless as to whether a copyright is indicated. Most people will only get upset if they are misquoted or not given credit for the quote.
Copyrights have completely gotten out of hand with their extension long past the lifetime of the author and long past any reasonable (a weasel word) payment for time and pain involved.

Patents protect property. Property that is protected is the source of personal wealth. Incentive to produce beyond one's immediate needs requires that the producer owns what he produces and has the liberty to do what he wishes with excess production. The present system is not perfect but far better than any where else.

What affect do you think the America Invents Act will have?

If patents and copyrights are not strongly held, then what is the incentive for the creating of new products? We revert to the ancient practice of keeping things secret and not sharing innovation.

"You didn't build that." Can't recall who said this, but it was probably a moocher who has always lived off the public teat.

1st of all great uncommercialized ideas are not a dime a dozen, 2nd of all you need property rights to justify spending the money to commercialize (disseminate).

I am uncertain on this because I think ideas are the main source of wealth in our post-industrial economy, BUT I also know uncommercialized ideas are a dime a dozen. The value, it seems, is in commercializing them. When I think about the companies generating value in our times, the FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google) companies, it looks like they're winning b/c of brilliant execution and trade secrets. If they are winning by patenting technology or buying/licensing patents, I don't hear about it. Maybe b/c execs have a reason to blow their own horn, and there's no one with a similar incentive to promote the role of patents. Do you know if patents play an unsung role in these companies' success?

The Hartline and Madigan paper and Halling's 'Patents=Wealth' do not prove that strong patents make wealth, but the evidence is strong. I am reminded of the concept of the efficiency frontier- with a given level of technology it is possible to vary and trade economic variables, but the lowest total cost is on a curve called the efficiency frontier. Only a change in technology can shift that curve down.
Well there is always luck I suppose, but if you are investing money or time, research is surer than crossing fingers.
Now, can better technology and inventions come without protecting the property of achievement that goes into the effort? The answer is a clear yes, but there again, the evidence is that financial incentive is better than the other methods (medals, torture, acclaim, appeals to the common good, love of invention, ..). For example Soviet science made a number of significant advances. There is scope here for a paper comparing breakthroughs and inventions in different legal regimes.

(The words strong and strength are used, I think the meaning is clear enough for the purpose)

Thx

This looks like an interesting article. How is the "strength" of a patent defined? I can guess, but as with all things Objectivist, definitions are important.