From a theoretical point of view, there are at least two imaginable equilibrium states for IP. One is maximal protection (what is coming rather close to what we do have) and the other would be a state without any patents or copyrights at all. As the liberalisation of the utility or telephony sector has shown even in such a scenario content providers are not likely to loose their market position (but are of course under higher competitive pressure). It is not clear whether a total minimal competition scenario will be more useful to medium- or large-sized businesses but it can be assumed that it could be useful to end users and small enterprise (which is sometimes close to end users).
On the other hand, trade secrets can hardly be banned (though one could limit the time for non-disclosure agreements) nor would it be a good idea to give up unique internet protocol addresses (or domain names). From this I would that if even under the minimalist model certain kinds of trade marks (such as domain names) are useful. At least in a non-mathematical sense, the namespace of typable or memorable IDs is obviously more limited (scarce) than the space of writeable texts or the space of patentable ideas. So this real scarcity also justifies its political importance (which explains why bodies such as ICANN receive so much attention). A good thing of a once-welldefined namespace (such as the current domain name space) is that ''land reforms'' are still comparatively cheap (e.g. remap company.com to company.com.tm). Remapping the trade mark system onto a unique global name space would also make it non-ambiguous and be better enforceable and bring it back to its origins - consumer protection (''Initially, for example, most courts (and the leading commentator) insisted that, to be protected, a trademark had to include the name of the manufacturer.'').[8].