The season of US election conventions is upon us. Politicians will issue sentimental proclamations about their faith in America. Meanwhile, from California, we have an object lesson in why that faith has been eroding. A supposed pillar of the nation’s capitalist vigour has been revealed in all its decadence.

That pillar is the US patent system, which has allowed Apple to extract $1bn from Samsung in compensation for alleged theft of intellectual property. According to nine randomly selected laymen– which is to say, a jury – Samsungmight as well be known as Samesung, since features of its smart phone suspiciously resemble the iPhone. Someone called Godzilla on the AppleInsider web forum summed up the verdict cheerfully: “Samsung proven to be the thieving snivelling wannabes that they are.”

If you surveyed convention delegates, you would find a majority in the Godzilla camp. Americans reasonably worship property rights and unreasonably extend this attitude to intellectual property rights, conflating “rival” goods like homes and hamburgers, which cannot be shared costlessly, with “non-rival” intellectual products that can be enjoyed simultaneously by all. Likewise, Americans worship innovation and presume that intellectual property rights always promote it. But this presumption is wrong.