Intellectual property should be freely shared. Monopoly hapana mzuri. Come up with a product and open factories all over to make it. Imagine if we had Rovers being made in Kenya? Or all other cars for that matter!? I can't fault the Chinese, infact mtu akinunua hiyo gari, alafu atoe label #imjustsaying

@mukiri - Have you ever done research?? One year plus of research? The day you will do, you'll understand IP Rights!!!

Now imagine companies have spent BILLIONS of their own dollars and DECADES researching on Cancer, HIV etc. and they haven't got a cure/vaccine yet. When they do, how do you propose they recover their money???

And this happens across all industries. Look around you right now. Most of the things you see are there because someone invested time and money in R & D.

If you want something to be freely available YOU invest in it's R & D. Even YOU as @mukiri!!! If you want there to be an anti malaria vaccine that any company can manufacture freely YOU invest in it's R & D!!!!!

Let's get real! Do you know how much goes into the development and refinement of EACH component of a car. You think the engine, battery, braking system, gearbox etc. perform better just by magic? Do you know the concept to market time and cost of some of these cars??? Some vehicles take years and billions of dollars between concept development and time the first car hits the market. And there are a myriad of challenges along the way that need the best minds in the industry to sort out.

On your examples, not all inventions get absolute protection. Like in the US, there are some that get a 7 year protection period within which it is expected you'll have recouped your costs and turned in a profit. And even after the protection period is over, you still enjoy the advantage of being 7 years ahead of the rest.

And start watching documentaries. Like today I was watching a Dr. Sanjay Gupta piece on CNN which illustrated why rare diseases have no cure. It is not because they are more complex than other diseases. It's because no major pharmaceutical company would dare invest in their research. They would NEVER recoup their money given the small 'market' from any drug they would develop for the disease. This would be the case with all the other diseases and everything else without IP protection.

But all is not lost. Even now you can get funding from different bodies for any important research you want to carry out and in most cases they demand that all the findings should be published and be freely available to EVERYONE! It's a win - win situation. You get handsomely paid for your effort. Your findings help the entire humanity. And the philanthropists - who are the funders - make an important contribution to mankind. This is part of their self actualization. If you are a serious researcher, go to Melinda and Bill Gates foundation or Bill Clinton foundation with a serious proposal on HIV or Malaria vaccine research and see if they will not fund it in the tune of millions of dollars. Anything that comes out of the research they make it freely available to everyone. Research is damn expensive. SOMEONE HAS TO PAY!!!

@sparkly - No comment. I'm trying to give a logical explanation based on facts while you on the other hand....