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Patents on software

The very concept of patents on software is ridiculous, even more so the preposterous idea that prior art means anything.

Patenting software is stupid. Particularly stupid is the idea that something with no prior art would be by definition non-obvious (because if it were obvious someone would have done it before).

In such a young field where people are daily learning it's implications whether anything is obvious or not is simply a matter of time.

New ideas, concepts and abilities become obvious day by day as infrastructure to support them becomes available.

A simple web based idea can only be obvious once the web exists and just because the web is created and some obvious uses of it appear is absolutely no reason to priviledge the first person to do the obvious over others.

Which is moot because patenting software (let alone business ethods) is plain stupid protectionism for lawyers and an impediment to all others.