Relativity theory isn't patentable as there is no business model which could commercialize it.
Patents were originally intended as a way to encourage innovation because they created a give and take relationship between private interests and the public. The inventor had to disclose the invention's inner workings, and in exchange they were given a relatively short period of exclusivity. The public benefited because the innovation was fully disclosed for others to dissect and re-apply some of those techniques and processes to new inventions.
In the current modern US copyright & patent system, where very few patents actually cover true innovation, there is little public benefit beyond this notion that protecting the inventor from copycats increases their likelihood to innovate. Of course, there is no scientific process that has lead people to this conclusion, so it is honestly an educated guess at best.
The dominant thinking in the business world seems to be that overall execution has become the dominant factor in commercial success and not a particular single innovation. Protecting these interests provides little benefit to anyone besides IP attorneys.
Copyright and patents are very different bits of IP.
Creative works like books are under copyright. You don't think that the ability to earn a living benefits the public by allowing a higher level of production of books, movies, music, etc...? I'm certain that things are tilted too far in favor of companies like Disney, but that doesn't mean the system should be thrown out entirely.
Patents seem like they depend more on the field: I think they're a hindrance for computer science, but am less convinced that they're a bad thing for things like drugs. In any case, it's a compromise, like you say, so the answer is likely to be in the middle somewhere.
I wrote a gigantic direct reasoning post in response to this, but I think a gigantic anecdotal analogy will work better.
In the state of Tennessee, where I live, there is currently a debate about repealing some laws that regulate the sale of wine, which would allow grocery stores to sell it. Polls put 70% of consumers favoring the measure. Arguments are being made mostly by liquor & wine store owners and employees that they have spent decades building their businesses based on the current legal environment, and that it is unfair to expose them to this competition. They're also arguing that service quality will be lowered, because the mass market grocery stores do not have the kind of expertise the current stores have in their product. They argue that local jobs will be lost. Church leaders are arguing that it will expose alcoholics to temptation they will not be able to resist. To these people, it is just unfathomable to change what exists now because it seems to work best for them. They have already resigned themselves that there is no possible way it could be any better any other way and they will fight it irrationally until the bitter end. My girlfriend and her father work at the largest liquor store in Tennessee. Toting the short-sighted company line, most of the employees are against the repeal.
Most liquor & wine stores ONLY exist because of these protection laws, and many of them are expensive and poorly ran. Very few of them can actually make the argument that their expertise or service sets them aside. Other burdensome regulations such as required distance from churches, schools, and other liquor stores are anti-urban and basically make certain locations extremely lucrative for the owners as they operate somewhat of a local monopoly and are grandfathered in. These people will go out of business. Successful stores can't even create multiple locations, so the best businesses in this arena are unable to scale.
There is a strong correlation between availability of wine and increased consumption. When overall consumption increases, the distributors stand to increase their revenues substantially, and overall the better liquor & wine stores that have increased selection and service will continue to stay where they are for the most part, if not see increases, even in the face of stiff competition from grocery stores. Grocery stores will likely focus on low margin, commodity wines that make the liquor & wine stores little money. Liquor & wine stores, of course, are viewed as "dirty" establishments and this deters many more conservative consumers from trying a product they may genuinely (and responsibly) enjoy. Just as any argument that protect jobs, their argument for "saving local jobs" is just arguing for robbing Peter to pay Paul. The money to pay these people comes directly from consumers, which means it's diverted from other jobs.
There is also some innovation to be had that will save consumers billions and unleash the potential of specialized stores that sell specialized and/or paired food and wine products. The current distribution model is poor and extremely inefficient. The last 30 years of innovation in supply chain management are missing from the distribution chain. A very small minority of retail stores even use UPC codes to perform computerized inventory & point-of-sale pricing. Even at the largest stores, ordering is done by entirely by hand. Management understands it's inefficient, but there is so much money rolling in, and usually a territory they monopolize, so there's very little incentive to change. Most stores are stocked entirely by the sales staff at distribution companies, based on what creates the most margin for them, not what consumers demand. Grocery stores are simply incompatible with the model that exists now, so the distributors will be forced to modernize to be able to get their product on those shelves.
This is the price we pay for unpopular, overreaching protectionist laws that hold together obsolete business models and rob real innovation and creativity, diverting gigantic sums of capital in unproductive ways and strongly inhibiting consumer choice. The current state of consumer-impacting copyright law holds these media companies together, and just like the wine & liquor stores in Tennessee, they are "fire and brim-stoning" us claiming that all of this high quality music & movies we enjoy will go away. The media companies want us to believe their business model is legitimate, that the choices they make for us are what we actually desire, that copying music and movies that we would otherwise not purchase IS theft and therefore morally wrong, and that the criminal punishment for copyright infringement should continue to massively exceed the act of actual theft from a store.
I sometimes enjoy a "big production movie", along the lines of Avatar (although I wasn't wild about that one), and think the world would be worse off without them.
Movies cost millions of dollars to produce. With no IP, we would be left with either movies produced by some rich patron or only by very low-budget amateurs, because otherwise, how do you recoup the money?
I am not sure why you are discussing wine; it is not a good analogy, as it is not an information good, and while you may feel that the "laws are all outdated", any reasoning about the purchase and distribution of wine is likely to not apply much to information goods.
You need to consider opportunity cost. What amazing things are we prevented from realising as a result of restrictive law and the practices it supports?
There was a time where the church could point to its awesome musical, architectural and wine traditions and say that they wouldn't exist without the strong forced support of the populace, land privileges, the right to cut the balls off young boys, education monopoly and other ludicrous concessions.
I'm a huge fan of the results of some these traditions, but there's more to life.
I think the parent post was very apt. Copyright and patents are both forms of protectionsim, like the Tennessee license laws he describes.
> What amazing things are we prevented from realising as a result of restrictive law and the practices it supports?
If you look at open source software, there's a lot of very good stuff out there, but it's not some amazing new world, really, except for the people who take it and use it, and give nothing back. They get a ton of value for free. That's ok, open source producers signed up to that world voluntarily, and in general, it sort of works out.
By taking away IP, you would force everyone to contribute their work for free to zillions of other people, thus collapsing the market - plenty of people contribute to open source for fun, but if they were forced to, a whole lot of people would get out of the software business.
