[homosaur]

We've well established at this point that the archaic US Patent System and software patents in general are not good for inventors, consumers, or the economy in general.

They are good for lobbyists and entrenched megacorporations, however, which means we can ignore all that and it's good for the public. Now go take your medicine, slave.

[dreamdu5t]

It is not well established or popular opinion. I work at a startup and many of my co-workers support patents, copyright, and intellectual property while simultaneously decrying patents like this.

[alipang]

I don't find it helpful to mix in copyright/intellectual property into this discussion as there is no reason why you can't support these while not supporting the patenting of ideas.

Personally I don't regard two-step authentication, or software patents in general as a kind of "invention", and don't find they should be patentable, much like "prime numbers" or "the periodic table".

[dreamdu5t]

I'd be interested in the reasoning you would support copyright but not patents? Copyright and patents have the exact same justification, just one is for published works and the other for "inventions." Both copyright and patents are titles of ownership to information.

[alipang]

I support patents, just not software patents. You can spend billions developing a new drug, and companies need to get reimbursed somehow for that, or everybody loses.

How much you think was been spent "inventing" two-factor authentication?

Can you give an example of software that you'd argue wouldn't have been developed if there were no software patents?

[wnight]

Copyright is somewhat legitimate because it recognizes that I may create an identical work especially if the problem space is small.

Patents are all about camping on an idea you hope is so obvious the next people will instinctively think of the same thing.

[dsl]

The people who don't like software patents, are the people who don't have any good ones.