And that's exactly the reason why intellectual "property" is actually the opposite of real property. It's a restriction on the ways you can use your things, a l

And that's exactly the reason why intellectual "property" is actually the opposite of real property. It's a restriction on the ways you can use your things, a limitation of your freedoms. Every patent granted, one more thing you can't do even if you rediscovered by yourself, one bit of liberty chipped away. Maybe one can be OK with this, but it's time to call things by their name or we'll never sort out this mess. So maybe after all there isn't so much difference between software and hardware patents. I think it's just that few people have a factory to get bitten by hardware patents, but everyone has a computer so it's much easier both to churn out soft patents and to feel the pain from them.