Patent law, as with all laws, entails some threat of the use of force if not followed. That force would be initiated by the governing body of the patent. But, perhaps those who desire to have patents which are enforced by government or other forceful agents, believe that someone who should produce something that is patented has somehow been the initiator of some kind of force against the patent holder. Patent law is law that can punish for a non-criminal act, i.e., for a non-initiation of force against a person's person or property. If I recall right, patents originally were to help a creator of a new useful device or process to recoup some of the money invested in developing the device over a short period of time and not as a means for a lifetime and beyond of prohibiting others from using an idea without paying for use of the idea. The prohibition is on the sale of something which includes the application of the idea and not the idea itself since one can use the idea for ones own personal purpose without infringing the patent. Same with a copyrighted material where one can create a copy in memory without infringing the copyright. That mental copy cannot be considered the property of the creator of the original work.
If force is to be applied to patents and copyrights, the period time should be as short as possible for payment for the time of developing the ideas involved and then let the market decide as to the real value of the idea by whether it is saleable for long periods of time and whether others can use the ideas better.

I am a little confused by your post. Can you explain a bit more?

Could it be that the non-aggression principle is assumed to not apply or that aggression is taken to be the production of some physical object to sell without the permission of government. The actual aggression is the extortion of some forced activity by the so called infringer of the patent. Resistance would be futile due to a law of force.

Industries prosper in spite of patents, through inventors succeeding in designing around them.

Otherwise, the patent holder simply stands on their ability to have a government granted monopoly for an arbitrary 20 years and innovation is stifled.

You are simply trying to defend the idea that only the "first" person to think of something gets a monopoly granted by the government. What about other people who thought of it independently? Why should they be prevented from enjoying the fruits of THEIR OWN inventions?

George Selden- was a patent attorney and tried to write a set of patentable specs back in the 1870's to cover all autos in perpetuity (a hell of a get rich scheme for George Selden) and modified it repeatedly over the years... Ford recognized it for the scam it was and fought it until (IIRC) 1919 when a judge threw it out. Selden actually built a vehicle from his patent specs in response to the suit by Ford; it was an ugly, ungainly thing that barely even ran. There are photos of the Selden, and I think it's in the Smithsonian... But it was enough not only to convince a judge that the suit had some merit, but only for a vehicle built around Selden's original design, and that it had little (if any) bearing on the then - modern automobile. Victory for Ford (and entrepreneurs)...

I am not certain if you are answering to my post or someone else's. Let me know and I will try to sort out what exactly your point is with regard to my post.

DB, how would the system work today if such a patent existed in a new developing industry? Would there be development in the niche, or would any development bring a horde of corporate lawyers down and stifle any new invention ? Or would the patent owning CEO wait until an invention was ready for market and use his pull on wall street to crush the new small business and pick up the IP for a song (and a percentage to his favorite bankster)?

What is amazing is you willingness to pontificate in the face of overwhelming evidence against you.

Your tactics are exactly the same as those of Global Warming prophets.

Innovative new car ideas have been smothered for 60+ years by anti-innovation regulations (mostly by NHTSA) that the car makers themselves lobby for and often write. The last serious attempt before the Tesla was the DeLorean, and before that there was an outfit in the '50s that sold maybe 150 cars before it went belly-up. So any conservatism on the car makers' part is only to avoid knocking holes in that scheme of overregulation.

This is not to deny that intellectual-property law has been used to stifle innovation; it often is. But the auto industry doesn't contain very many examples of the practice. The computer industry does, both in hardware and software, and you can see them at techdirt.com on a weekly basis.

Point well made, but I will point out thet the Wright Brothers did in fact stifle the aviation business in the United States through their single minded determination to squeeze every penny out of their invention. That is one reason why the French were so far ahead of the US in aviation technology at the outset of the first world war. The USA in fact never contributed anything more than the Curtiss Jenny and the liberty engine to the war. No fighter plane or bomber. I think the wrights assumed the there would never be many airplanes and they had to squeeze every cent they could out of every example made. They didn't seem to understand that minimal licensing fees of the technology would earn them vast sums due to volume.

Actually you are incorrect their are several anti-patent crowds. There are the socialists who are just against patents, there are the Austrians who are against patents, and then there are the crony capitalists who are against patents, not to mention just the anti-reason crowd.

Once again you last statement shows a complete lack of understanding of the empirical data. The U.S. had the strong patent system and had the automotive industry. Those countries without patent systems were not even close to the US, so unless you mean it would have been better if this one patent had not existed your statement is nonsense

Re the last sentence of your article:

There is no monolithic “anti-patent crowd”. Any particular individual who opposes patents may or may not be part of a “group” or a “movement”. Any particular individual who opposes patents may or may not lie. Any particular individual who opposes patents may or may not cite the Selden patent as evidence for his or her belief.

I agree with you that “. . . the automotive industry prospered and inventiveness accelerated despite the Selden patent.” Nevertheless, even though the eventual outcome was favorable for Ford, significant time and resources were expended by Ford, ALAM and the courts in asserting, defending against and adjudicating the infringement claim. The automotive industry might have prospered to a greater extent if this claim had never been brought.

hear hear

Interesting article

If anything stifled development in the auto industry I would vote for risk averse attitudes in management increasing as the auto companies grew in size and value.