>No comment on if this is good or bad, but we should probably decide explicitly if we're going to grant monopolies on entire kinds of products.
That's exactly what the patent system was intended for, though. If you invented a new product, you were granted an effective monopoly on that specific invention for a certain amount of time(now 25 years in the US).
I was under the impression that it was something more like "method and process for making a better mouse trap" and not "any old thing that catches mice". We're to the point now that mouse trap makers are suing the breeders of cats.
That's exactly what the patent system was intended for, though. If you invented a new product, you were granted an effective monopoly on that specific invention for a certain amount of time(now 25 years in the US).