"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" Software patents are currently a drag on innovation. The benefits of giving a company a monopoly in exchange for sharing their software "invention" isn't a good bargain - especially when their "invention" will be, and has been, independently invented over and over again 99.9% of the time. Patents may be OK for some things but they cause more harm than good in the software field.