[GSDI Legal Econ] Should software be patentable?

[Roger Longhorn]

To follow - or enter - the debate on software patents (see below), visit 
the End Software Patents (ESP) Project site at:

http://endsoftpatents.org/

A taste below, from their home page:

*End Software Patents*

*Every company is in the software business*, which means that every 
company has software liability. We estimate costs of $11.2 billion a 
year due to software patent suits (see our 2008 State of Softpatents 
</2008-state-of-softpatents> report - 
http://endsoftpatents.org/2008-state-of-softpatents), and not just by 
Microsoft and IBM—*The Green Bay Packers*, *Kraft Foods*, and *Ford 
Motor* are facing software patent infringement lawsuits for their use of 
the standard software necessary for running a modern business.

*Software innovation happens without government intervention.* Virtually 
all of the technologies you use now were developed before software was 
widely viewed as patentable. The Web, email, your word processor and 
spreadsheet program, instant messaging, or even more technical features 
like the psychoacoustic encoding and Huffman compression underlying the 
MP3 standard—all of it was originally developed by enthusiastic 
programmers, many of whom have formed successful business around such 
software, none of whom asked the government for a monopoly. So *if 
software authors have a proven track-record of innovation without 
patents, why force them to use patents?* What is the gain from billions 
of dollars in patent litigation?

*Change is happening now.* The appeals court of the Federal Circuit has 
agreed to reconsider the scope of what is patentable, and the ESP 
project will be on hand with amicus briefs and public information. See 
our resources for lawyers </resources-for-lawyers> page for more. 
(http://endsoftpatents.org/resources-for-lawyers)

This site is an overview of how courts self-expanded their jurisdiction 
to include software despite the protests of practitioners such as Bill 
Gates or Adobe Microsystems, of the economic damage done, how the story 
is evolving today, and how your company can help to restore the software 
market to a world run by innovators, not judges.

<ends>

Regards

Roger