Are Software Patents Barriers to Innovation?

[little_tiger]

why are so many people against software patents? why do they think that software patents are the barriers to innovation? what do you guys think?

 

[rcgldr]

Based on the few patents I've looked at that were related to stuff I was working on at the time back in the 1980's it was clear that the patent office wasn't doing a good job of rejecting patents based on "obviousness". My standard: if you were to assign a task to ten separate software engineers experienced in the field of study related to the patent, how many would come up with the same concept granted in the patent? If 2 or 3 make the same "discovery", then the patent should not be granted, because it is sufficiently obvious to anyone familiar with the tecnology. In some cases, I saw granted patents where 7 to 9 of 10 would have made the same "discovery".

 

[mack_10]

why not copywrite instead?