Obviously, it would be difficult to "patent" a basic fact of nature, particularly some that can be described in a single sentence. See here for a general idea of what is patentable. I am discussing complex information and inventions that are the results of years of work.

Some things are way, way too important to be left to private ownership, including but not limited to laws of physics, chemistry, the human genome, drug patents and so on. Man's greed is unlimited, and there have to be some checks on it, just as there are on the other drives.

To claim that any result of human effort can be taken by force away from that person without his consent and given to others is to enslave that person. Period. And all the "public good" phrases and other half-rotted heaps of left-wing verbal horseshit that gets piled in reeking tons over that basic concept doesn't change a thing.

It is worth noting that those who advocate "redistribution" of intellectual property make no distinctions between research that is the result of government funding, wherein a case might be made for the results belonging to "everyone," and research that is the result of private funding, like drug patents. It's all fair game.

"Some things are way, way too important to be left to private ownership.". Yeah? Who gets to decide? This is one of the most frightening phrases in history. Its rough translation is, "some people are just too useful not to be slaves." Well, I suppose a bunch of people who want to steal something without effort that someone else worked years for would think that. It's exactly the same moral code as the guy who holds you up at the ATM machine. You've got it. He doesn't. Therefore he gets to take yours. I wonder who the greedy ones are in this transaction.