I could respond in kind, but it'd be better for me to explain why I think software patents are a bad idea.
See, I think of the patent system as two separate entities. Hardware/physic design patents, and software. Physical design patents are necessary, because they're clear cut, obvious, an strict.
Like, say, Apple invents a way to route circuitry in a specific way through other specific pieces of hardware to save on battery life without any sacrifice to processing power. This is easily patentable. Apple has to show the patent office exactly what they've done in excruciating detail.
...and most importantly, it doesn't give Apple the right to the end result. Google could design a piece of hardware that achieves the same results in an entirely different way, like jigging a wire to the right and routing it through a herdegerder instead of Apple's patented woozit mechanism, and not be infringing on Apple's patent. The end result is the same, but the path there is entirely different.
Then you have software patents. Which are basically people thinking of clever ways to phrase commands to a machine. They're using a preset language to produce results. Because of the specificity of the process of the design, rather than the design itself the end result has to be made a part of the patent. It's not just "we found a clever way to do this", rather "we found a clever way to tell a computer to do this". Why should you get a patent from using an already established language to tell a computer to execute a command? Isn't that what programming languages were invented for? To tell computers to do things?
And then you have UI patents. Sometimes they're justified, sometimes they're completely inane. Like Apple's recent patent on the disappearing scrollbar. That's just...stupid. I can't believe it even passed inspection at the patent office. It's not clever. It's not a completely unprecedented feature of the scrollbar, or even an unheard of feature in the computer world. It's like the dock or Windows taskbar sliding down when not in use...only now for the scroll bar.
Apple knows this, but they went ahead and patented it anyway. Why? Because they're literally trying to patent every single software related thing they can think of, regardless of it's novelty or innovation. If they can think of a neat feature, even one they've seen on another OS previously, they'll patent it if they can, because it's more ammo to be used against the competition later.
What the disappearing scrollbar showed me is that Apple isn't using the patent system, they're abusing it.
Software should only be trademarked and copyrighted. Patenting things like the ability to tell a computer to search multiple databases is like an writer being able to patent an entire genre. It's like a guy going before the court and saying "You see, your honor, my character gets murdered in the first act, with his murder being solved by the climax in the third. Much like my alleged competitor's book, which follows a very similar process to the end. Therefore, he's infringing upon my idea".
Anyway, I'd go more into detail, but it's storming out really bad at the mo, and I want to shut my comp down. But hopefully you can see why I think software patents are bad. They stifle innovation rather than foster it.
