IP laws are of incredible value, and the idea is sound. The point was not to lock IP up, but actually to force it to be public instead of secret.

Imagine you publish an open source program. Companies have to pay you to use it for seven years, and after that it's public. The system is easy, requires no lawyers, and just generally works. People are rewarded for their contributions and free access to the ideas of others is preserved.

Disney, r&d labs, and the other fucks turned it into a way to suppress free use and extended the time range on these things to the degree that they are worthless while shitty court systems with hideous expense and unfair advantages to large companies annihilated the ability of the little guy to profit.

Meanwhile nations like China ignore them entirely, making parents fucking worthless because there fact they are public knowledge means that China just steals them and runs away laughing.

Make patents worth a damn again. Cut China out of our trade system. Fix the legal imbalances that fuck us over at the benefit of big companies, and restrict patent terms to a reasonable length.