You may be right about why Congress enacted IP laws, but they are not the only way to incentivize people to innovate in order to “further civilization”. There are lots of reasons people innovate and lots of things that can move civilization forward. After all, the concept of patent law began only about 300 years ago and the term IP didn’t even exist until the 19th century, and yet civilization had been able to move forward just fine until then. And contrary to your statement about progress being impeded, China’s rapid progress has NEVER been seen in the history of humankind. I think we should be careful about using the terms incentivize and progress. What incentives are we talking about? Is it money? If indeed true, then we would have a very pessimistic view of the world–one that I would not want to be a part of, because I believe and HOPE people would innovate without the incentive of money. Likewise, if, as designers, we set money to be our only incentive and expect IP laws to protect us and serve us, then I would also say the field of design is walking a dangerously self-destructive path. In fact, you’ll see corporations being more motivated to circumvent patents in order to make a profit and not be sued. Meanwhile, corporations often apply for over-arching patents and never release a product due to cost; the end result being great, timely innovations never see the light of day. Don’t get me wrong: I believe in the usefulness of IP laws; I simply don’t believe it’s the only way to incentivize people and much less move society forward. Best example? Open-source coding has given the technology some of the best and biggest innovations in the past few decades.