taken from Steve Jobs Didn’t Build That:
” … The American patent system is based on what Gar Alperovitz calls “the hero inventor” ideology, the belief that one man or woman working diligently and independently on a project drives innovation by upending the status quo.
… The implications of this ideology are important for capitalism as a system … The history of attribution, then, is largely the history of arbitrarily choosing one of many inventors and showering him with praise and wealth.
Innovators, in addition to standing up on the shoulders of giants, rarely work alone … Invention appears in significant part to be a social, not an individual, phenomenon.
… today intellectual property is our commons, information is our commons …
Thus American patent law is designed not to promote innovation, but rather stifle it, by allowing one individual to profit at the expense of society …
Rather than promoting innovation, patents allow for capitalists to monopolize public research and knowledge for private gain … Just like the oil barons of Saudi Arabia who build their regimes by exploiting their country’s vast natural resources, the tech barons of America build their wealth by exploiting a vast intellectual heritage that is not theirs to take.”
… and then there is this interesting story … one way to fight back against software patents
both via Albert Wenger