I would direct the student to the working Paper by James Besser and Eric Maskin, Sequential Innovation, Patents, and Imitation, which builds an economic argumen

I would direct the student to the working Paper by James Besser and Eric Maskin, Sequential Innovation, Patents, and Imitation, which builds an economic argument against software patents. It and other relevant papers on software patents are available at http://www.researchoninnovation.org/ http://www.researchoninnovation.org/.