Fraunhofer got paid lots of money from big companies buying patent licenses. Since they are a non-profit institution dedicated to scientific research, almost ev

Fraunhofer got paid lots of money from big companies buying patent licenses. Since they are a non-profit institution dedicated to scientific research, almost everything they make finds its way back into funding scientific research. That said, we shouldn't generalize Fraunhofer's economics to the rest of the software industry. If it was just this kind of thing I would have zero problems with it. But we should be suspicious of software patents because the patent system implicitly rewards ideas that are broad (more things a patent touches, more $$$) and non-inventive (less work to come up with a patent, more $$$). Patents can be dangerous to human progress, and the patent system encourages patents that are. A broad patent could hold a whole industry hostage for 20 years, which is an eternity in technology. I sympathize more with folks who want to get rid of the whole thing for this reason.