On the other hand, do you wonder why CEOs of tech companies are afraid of lobbying against patents? Imagine if you had told the press "Patents are bullshit. No

On the other hand, do you wonder why CEOs of tech companies are afraid of lobbying against patents? Imagine if you had told the press "Patents are bullshit. Nobody reads them except lawyers. Our engineers are told not to read them, because then we would pay more damages. We are probably infringing on dozens of patents every time we flush a toilet, let alone release a new product, but so is everyone else. We just pay the lawyers to keep other lawyers off our tail, and hope for the best. Business still goes on, but the same is true in North Korea - it's in spite of government regulations, not because of them". Imagine then, you get sued by a competitor for infringing on their patent. In response, you threaten to sue them back, for some of their inevitable infringements on your patents. You can bet that your statement will be paraded around in front of the judge in both cases, as evidence that your patent is bullshit, and evidence that you were willfully infringing. I'm not saying all patents are bad. Drugs need patents, so they can pay for the huge costs of testing them to comply with the FDA, and you need this process to stop companies selling dangerous quack medicine (or just stuff that hasn't been tested properly). OK, there are some elements of the drug approval process that are a little broken, but you don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. When it comes to software patents, what you have floating in the tub is not, figuratively speaking, a baby.