An afternoon among the patent lawyers

There's a lot of talk about protecting one's "intellectual property", but what about protection *from* intellectual property? Instead of casting the debate in terms of "I have an idea, let's stop anyone stealing it", how about "I have an idea; I want the freedom to exercise it without restraint".

Remember, there is no fundamental property right to ideas. The patent is a time-limited monopoly, granted to inventors (despite the inherent harm in monopolies), as a concession to encourage them to produce more useful-works.