Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nontrivial ideas are not natural resources but are created by an author; just as a physical object is the property of its creator, ideas are an intangible property owned by their author. Can you name the algorithm used to distinguish "trivial ideas" from "nontrivial ideas"? I'm waiting... What about an algorithm for determining when "nontrivial idea A" is equivalent to "nontrivial idea B"? We're still foundering on t…
The comment about nontriviality and equivalence goes for physical objects too, you know.
The patent system only makes in a world in which you have a finite number of industries performing a finite number of useful tasks. Then the social context lets you distinguish useful and useless inventions. Even then, the GGP's point of nontrivial works naturally belonging to their inventors is balderdash. What you can say, all you can say, is, with physical inventions in a fairly static world, that society can somewhat coherently grant people monopolies on inventions for public policy purposes.
But in a world where every activity, including the modification of the physical world, is approach "information processing", the whole patent system is become logically unsupportable. In this information processing world, a patent is government granting people deeds to an ill-defined terrain. And it's fairly clear our world is getting closer to that, is it not?
And with a ill-defined terrain, common sense about what's useful, common usage, etc just go out the window. All patents approach the status of troll-patents.