[mattrices]

Your candybar arguement is absurd because you can't sell ip direct to consumers. You could manufacture a product that uses it or sell access via some supply limiting portal, but that is much different than actually selling ip.

Additionally it's not inventory because it is not finite. There is a distinction made by GAAP regarding valuation of tangible vs intangible assets because it is much more complex process to valuate intangible assets such as ip.

[snowwrestler]

Physical inventory and IP are analogous in that they are both types of property that their owner intends to use to generate revenue (and hopefully profit).

> it is much more complex process to valuate intangible assets such as ip.

Please note that my argument above assigns a value of $0.00 to the IP itself.

Even at that valuation, you can still commit theft by robbing me of the opportunity to use that IP to generate revenue. By analogy: when you steal a TV, you are charged on the retail price of the TV (the amount you should have paid for it), not the wholesale price (the amount the store paid for it).

[mattrices]

Your intention is irrelevant, limiting your opportunity is not theft. You're using that analogy as an emotional appeal to present the ip holder as a victim.

Any competitor could limit your opportunity by releasing a functionally similar non infringing product. Would you choose the word 'robbing' in that circumstance?

One would have to use your ip to create a competing product before it would even be copyright infringement, and it still wouldn't be theft since you cannot steal somthing intangible since by definition it only exists as an abstraction which is not the same as zero valued tangible inventory.