There are inanimate objects that are manually made out of raw materials by humans. It can make sense to grant the inventor of such a thing a time limited monopoly on its production by banning anyone else from manufacturing it for sale and distribution.

Living beings are not inanimate objects that are manually made out of raw materials. They are not human-made. They reproduce and humans only create the environment for this to happen. You cannot invent a living being. You can invent a modification in the genome and thereby create a new breed, but that should not grant you the right to have a monopoly on the reproduction of those living beings.

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ribosometronome 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Patents function only to limit the actions of what living beings can and cannot do.

Plus, it's seems false to paint this orchard as just an environment humans created where they reproduced. It's a place where the farmer very specifically reproduced them, not just the conditions.

	▲	basilikum 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Patents function only to limit the actions of what living beings can and cannot do. Like all other laws. I don't see how this is relevant. > It's a place where the farmer very specifically reproduced them, not just the conditions. Sorry to be so blunt, but the farmer is neither fucking peaches nor giving birth to them. Living beings self reproduce. Humans sometimes put a lot of work into creating the perfect conditions for that to happen, but that is irrelevant to the point. When I smash rocks together to create a tool I and only I created that. When I plant seeds for them to grow into fruits which contain many more seeds I did not create the new seeds on my own. That does not make my work any less valuable but it does change the nature of the action. The first scenario should be allowed to be restricted to the inventor for a limited time. The second scenario should not be restricted. The act of reproduction of life should never be seen as anyone's property.