[Silhouette]

Ask software developers who work in defense, aerospace, medical devices, telecommunications, video/audio processing, and other capital-intensive, R&D-intensive fields.

I've worked in several of those fields, and I have yet to meet these proponents of software patents you're talking about. Any advantage to having a patent on the results of your own R&D seems to be far outweighed by the persistent threat of being sued (with or without any actual merit) by someone else who claims you're infringing on the results of their R&D.

If something was useful enough and available enough for multiple parties to invent/discover/exploit it independently, it should be self-evident that patents are not a necessary incentive for that work to take place and can only be a barrier to further innovation for all-but-one of the inventing/discovering parties. This effect is magnified many times over if the patent is not for a specific piece of software but rather for something like a data format or communications mechanism. There is a reason you can't copyright the shape of a font in the US, and I think analogous arguments apply in these cases.

Fortunately, this is less of a problem for us here in the UK where the culture is not as litigious as in the US. Still, if nothing else, the repeated attempts by the US to export its onerous IP regime are a worry for small businesses here that using technologies potentially affected by software patents granted in other jurisdictions. The whole system is just one big barrier to competition for smaller organisations who can't play political/legal games to negate the whole technical issue as the big players do.

[rayiner]

> If something was useful enough and available enough for multiple parties to invent/discover/exploit it independently

What makes you think the technologies in question are invented independently? Take the Motorola Mobility patents, for example. Most of the patent licensees aren't in a position to hire all the experts and do all the R&D it took Motorola to develop that technology. They just use the end result of all that R&D produced by Motorola. If there was no patent system, they would just use the end result without compensating Motorola for all the work of developing the technology.

[Silhouette]

What makes you think the technologies in question are invented independently?

What makes you think they aren't? That's the problem with a lot of software patents: people can just run into them (or be accused of running into them and subject to the resulting legal proceedings) without even knowing they were there. Then, suddenly, possibly after years of their own R&D, they get hit with paying royalties on something that had nothing to do with their own development work.

If there was no patent system, they would just use the end result without compensating Motorola for all the work of developing the technology.

Perhaps, but if they're really only trying to make carbon copies of what Motorola were doing, then Motorola have a huge first mover advantage anyway. Specifically, they have as long as it takes to commercialise their R&D work before they have to disclose it, because the work is a protected trade secret like any other up to that point. So as long as they keep innovating in significant ways that others couldn't, they will remain years ahead of their competitors in the market. That seems like a natural and compelling commercial incentive to me, without any need to add artificial benefits via patents.