[kelnos]

If you want my technology enough to steal it, then my technology has value, and it is property, just as anything else I might build with my own hands is property.

Perhaps, but the market for this technology is completely inelastic. Regardless of the money/effort/time required to develop this technology, you get the exact same monopoly guarantee in the form of the patent. And you can charge whatever you want for a license, even if that price is entirely unreasonable. You can even be discriminatory, and charge different people different amounts. Or, worse, you can refuse to license to some people, or to everyone.

For a technology that took significant money/effort/time to develop, I can agree with patent protection. But most software patents are comparatively trivial.

[Terretta]

For a technology that took significant money/effort/time to develop, I can agree with patent protection.

An odd position, as it penalizes the thoughtfully elegant lateral thinking solution, which is arguably harder to do.

[kelnos]

Does it? If you can come up with the idea -- lateral thinking or not -- in a couple hours, then any number of other people could do so too. In that sense I don't find the idea "valuable" enough to warrant strong patent protection.

Patents are an economic tool, not an "I'm clever so I should get paid" tool. The point is to help people push aside concerns about time and money when developing a new idea. Because if a competitor of equal skill can duplicate your work in a fraction of the time, just because they have access to the results of your R&D, that's a strong incentive not to even bother in the first place. So it's about time and money, not about smart thinking or elegance.

(Regarding patents in general, even this argument falls apart a little bit for me. I think trade secret law is sufficient in many cases where patents are traditionally used.)