"The complexity of software and low standards for patent eligibility mean that software engineers produce potentially patentable ideas all the time. [Snip] Auditing 10 million lines of code for compliance with 18,000 patents is an impossible task—especially because the meaning of a patent’s claims are often not clear until after they have been litigated. [Snip] The result is a transfer of wealth from young, growing, innovative companies like Google to mature, bureaucratic companies like Microsoft and IBM—precisely the opposite of the effect the patent system is supposed to have."
Those three sentences together form the best explanation I've seen yet on why software patents are so problematic.
Those three sentences together form the best explanation I've seen yet on why software patents are so problematic.