The patent expiration on a drug is a huge event and it provides tangible benefits - creation of a drug, and then wider availability. The same is hardly true wi

The patent expiration on a drug is a huge event and it provides tangible benefits - creation of a drug, and then wider availability. The same is hardly true with software and many other technologies. By the time the patent expires, the described technology is frequently obvious and offers little additional value. Patents may be a good thing when applied correctly, but use of software with a vague tie to some physical hardware is not the right way to apply it, as evidenced by the these extortions. If one actually examines how the software is being patented and the problematic linkages to hardware that make it patentable, the entire argument falls apart in my eyes. "For computer implemented processes, the “machine” is often disclosed as a general purpose computer. In these cases, the general purpose computer may be sufficiently “particular” when programmed to perform the process steps. Such programming creates a new machine because a general purpose computer, in effect, becomes a special purpose computer once it is programmed to perform particular functions pursuant to instructions from program software." [1] In other words, the only thing that separates software from a business methods, which enjoy much less protection, is the fact that instead of a human performing the tasks, a general computer is performing the tasks. If you consider a software program is nothing more than a collection of instructions, it then can be considered similar in nature to a operator's manual given to a worker processing something. [1] http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2106.html http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2106.html