The problem with no patents
The story in the Times begins with a sad story about a smallish developer who was had patents but couldn't enforce them in time because of the money their opponent, Nuance, spent to keep their patents up in the air. That's a place where we need court reform, so that access to protection is not unequal. What a thought. It would be great to do the same thing with accused criminals, too. Courts, in fact, are underfunded so that they don't give speedy justice for all.
But the bigger problem is a LARGE company like Samsung and Google, who have no regard for patent laws, or intellectual property in general. They are supported by the tech teeny bops, who see no reason for any software patents at all. Samsung makes nice pieces of tech, but first they made Blackberry knockoffs, and then they made Apple knockoffs. And Google fan's talking point is that "Google was at work on Android two years before the iPhone came out!" (Yeah, but it looked like a Blackberry, see?) Or "The iPhone wasn't first! The Palm Pilot was just the same!" (And I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.)
I love the idea of open source, though, since it waives patent protection it is not possible that anyone will make any money on what they do. The open source movement is made up of people who make real living elsewhere, for the most part. And that's the way it always will be. The main Linux distribution exists because a billionaire decided to put money into it as a cause. I have no quarrel with that, but it will never be the mainstream.
A patent is on a method. Software patents were found viable by the Supreme Court, because they are a method of operation. This is the way that the writers of the Constitution chose to protect private business, in distinction to the British method: if the King declares the East India Company has a monopoly on tea, and the company gives a really nice cash present to the royal in question, then there was a monopoly that lasted hundreds of years. In contrast, we file a patent, the government accepts it, and you have legal protection for a limited time. Patents can be invalidated by a court, or upheld.
Google has a very troubling and incorrect reading of the patent laws. They are a huge company that doesn't seem to have any regard for the laws of the land in this regard. They scan millions of books; good. But they take no care of the rights of the various authors, so they get hit by a lawsuit and whine. They want a music player, but they don't get the licensing for such a thing, and so all you can do is store your own music with them. They start up Google TV, and then are surprised that all the "free tv" that is on the web gets shut down to their machine.
I think we should do something about trolls; those who buy up patents with no intent to use them as anything but a money farm. I would say that a patent can be bought, but that the new owner has to make something within three years that uses that patent, and its ownership only starts when it brings a product to market.