Of course this takes all empirical evidence out of the debate, and leaves Mossoff only with the unfalsifiable propositions that absent the current (or a modified) version of Patent law “creators would go unremunerated” or that “creators would have no incentive to advance technology”. These propositions are easily understood to be false if you look at actual human action, where creators are always seeking to better their position – but if you cannot appeal to historical evidence you are left arguing about what some hypothetical homo inventus would do if he couldn’t rely on the brutal power of the monopoly state to limit his competitors and potential consumers.

And Mossoff, in this falsely framed debate, will always be able to come up with some situation where he wouldn’t get the invention he desired because the realities of scarcity would limit his homo inventus to choices that actually made economic sense. And from that hypothetical “market failure”, Mossoff will always argue for the socialist solution of forcing every individual into a single system where the type of invention he desires is provided “for free” (i.e. at the expense of every taxpayer, manufacturer, consumer, and rival inventor, regardless of their own internal opinions of the system).

What does that even mean? Something is going to happen if the patent expires, but apart from that..