[dabrowski]

Perhaps.

Some things are hard to copy though and would take time to reproduce by others (if ever).

And how do you know it would result in a net loss for consumers? I guess by assuming that iPhone's form factor would not get invented, if others were allowed to copy it. But how do you know that it wouldn't? And what about all the other things that would get invented, because people were allowed to reverse engineer stuff or develop other, currently patent protected technologies?