The extension of copyright to match that of the European Union would have happened if the Walt Disney Company magically vanished off the face of the earth. The two systems had to be reconciled. And the EU wasn’t about to make it shorter.
Patents and copyrights both cover intellectual property, but the similarities end there. There’s no reason for them to last the same amount of time. Patents are designed to protect the initiation of a new idea or process. It is assumed that the world will change and force the creation of even newer ideas and that is considered to be a good thing that should be protected by limiting the length of time one patent can stifle innovation.
Words, on the other hand, are assumed to have power for long periods of time. A book can be reprinted in many editions. Even before the 1976 change a patent only lasted 17 years but copyright, with renewal, lasted 56 years. The difference made sense because every single thing about the money flow and the time at which the public benefits more from free access is different between the two wildly different systems.
SCSimmons, I need to tell you that anybody who accuses Walt Disney for this gets treated thereafter like somebody dropping Creationism into a discussion of evolution. It’s a giant neon sign that you don’t understand the issues. Disney continues to hold trademark over Mickey Mouse. Trademark is forever, as long as it is kept active, and far more powerful than copyright. (Yes, it is a third and again totally different system of intellectual protection with totally different laws.)
The long and short of it that separate systems have separate laws for separate reasons. You can’t apply the laws of one to any of the others and expect to have that make sense.