Really good question, sir. Thank you!

First, by advance do you mean progress or transformation?

Secondly, what does one really own? I say you only own what you can defend. IP is about ideas and ideas can hardly be protected by laws and whatnot. You patent something in one part of the world by paying a premium just to see it implemented in another part of the world. Now what? Open source solves this problem with elegance, creating the opportunity for people to transact v4v (voluntary). Bitcoin hits many birds with one stone. The asymmetry of cryptography offers the user the closest thing one can hope to own here on Earth.

Thirdly, Goethe said it best: what's really yours you can't lose it even if you throw it away. He was talking of course about the things you get to integrate during your lifetime in the sphere of the attributes of the human experience.

In conclusion, IP sucks balls.