It wouldn't need to be driven by profit, it can also serve as a safety net from losses. If a company needs to spend 10 years and enormous resources to develop a new drug, they may never do that if they can not protect themselves from someone copying the finished result, undercutting them on price without without costs to recoup.
That particular example (if it's simple to produce) sound like greed, I agree.
I agree with Patents in a lot of the practical theory. An ivnentor should have reasonable assurance that they have the entitlement to protection for their work.
I have a problem however with the practical application of software patents.
There's no good translation from the original intention of Patents and their protection of INVENTION (not, not innovation), and to modern software.
when the Patent system was invented, it was designed to protect the means of accomplishing a task. But not the task itself. For simple example, lEts pretend the Hammer was patented.
The Patent would be the design of the hammer, The hard top that strikes and the marriage of the two into a tool useful for accomplishing a task.
Software patents of today tend to be less about the means to accomplish the tasks, and the outcome of the task. So in the hammer case "driving a nail into wood".
This narrow scope and defnitiion of the task to be accomplished instead of the means to accomplish it is crippling. There are many ways to accomplish many tasks. using this example, if you were to say, invent a new tool in which to drive a nail into wood, you would be violating the patent of the Hammer, Despite the tool being completely different (say, mechanical air piston that drives the nail).
A modern example of where I see this could be some of the patents Apple has repetively attempted (and hasn't really ever won on) to sue on. The method to draw 3d images on a UI Display. They often claim that if you're drawing a 3d image as partof the UI, that it is violating their patent.
To me this is the task. Not the method to accomplish the task. The method is the coding in which accomplishes it. So in Apples claim, Nobody else should have the right to Draw a 3d image on a UI. Meanwhile, It is a given that this task is, and can be accomplished by multiple different coding means and methods.
(not trying to pick on apple just first example that came to mind).
But this to me is the biggest issue I have with modern software patents. They're patenting the outcome. the Task to be accomplished, not the direct and precise means to accomplish the task, which leads to incredible amount of vagueness, and the ridiculous amount of Patent lawsuits we're seeing around the world, especially in the software industry. I see Patents as a barrier to advancement in this regard. When you can no longer accomplish the meneal tasks in order to devise your own solution, you prevent future growth related to that task, should someone come up with a better, more efficient or more advanced way
