[clavalle]

There are over a million software engineers and computer programmers in the U.S. Say, 15% were convinced to give $30 a month (or their employers). That would be over 50 million a year for operations. That is not including other donations that would be solicited, or fees payed by other interested parties such as hardware manufacturers, venture capitalists and the like.

Now will $50 mil. be the death knell for the pro software patent lobby? No, there are big companies with very deep pockets that would fund the other side well, but it is a fine start.

Of course, my hope would be that the $50 mil. would mostly go to crushing trolls in court, sucking up tasty patents, building and maintaining a solid resource of precedent and prior art in this area and setting good precedent and leave the bulk of the lobbying to donations above and beyond the collected fees.