And to extend the argument (as in the article), if those same people can't actually sell their inventions because of interlocking patents held by competitors th

And to extend the argument (as in the article), if those same people can't actually sell their inventions because of interlocking patents held by competitors then the patents they do hold aren't much use. The idea of a patent is heavily predicated on one novel advance in an otherwise freely implementable design. But in software that is (or threatens to become) a myth rather than a reality.