My cow-orker Jason Schultz — who leads EFF's fight against stupid software patents — has written a great editorial for today's Salon on the perils of dotcom patents:
The idea behind patents is that inventors and manufacturers of new products should have some protection against free riders in the marketplace that would otherwise copy their innovations. If competitors are able to simply copy the innovations of those first to market, few will have incentives to release their products to the public. In this instance, however, we see the opposite result.
Here, the patents at issue were less valuable to companies that actually produce Web services products than they were to firms that produce nothing but lawsuits and licensing threats. In other words, patents like these have become worth more as weapons than as protections for companies competing in the marketplace.
