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In the interest of not falling prey to sensationalism I wanted to find out if there's more to the story than just "software patents are evil."
If software patents didn't exist, maybe I wouldn't have based my business on that software in the first place because I'd worry that somebody else would notice that it's profitable and use it to run their business. Patents are necessary to encourage people to innovate, though obviously some patents (that probably shouldn't have been given in the first place) have stunted innovation.
If I write a great piece of software, patent it, then run a business selling it, then that patent does me (and my family) a lot of good. I worked hard to create the software, and I should reap the rewards. If software patents didn't exist, maybe I wouldn't have based my business on that software in the first place because I'd worry that somebody else would notice that it's profitable and use it to run their business.…
I think the original poster was asking for real examples of how they have been good in practice.
If I write a great piece of software, patent it, then run a business selling it, then that patent does me (and my family) a lot of good. I worked hard to create the software, and I should reap the rewards. If software patents didn't exist, maybe I wouldn't have based my business on that software in the first place because I'd worry that somebody else would notice that it's profitable and use it to run their business.…
My opinion is that patents stop innovations rather than encourage them.
If I write a great piece of software, patent it, then run a business selling it, then that patent does me (and my family) a lot of good. I worked hard to create the software, and I should reap the rewards. If software patents didn't exist, maybe I wouldn't have based my business on that software in the first place because I'd worry that somebody else would notice that it's profitable and use it to run their business.…
Though even there, it mostly looks good if you look at the patents with a higher bar for innovativeness. Inventing something like FM synthesis entirely (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_modulation_synthesis) is a bit different from patenting the Nth variation on some well-known synthesis algorithm.
Redhat?
If I write a great piece of software, patent it, then run a business selling it, then that patent does me (and my family) a lot of good. I worked hard to create the software, and I should reap the rewards. If software patents didn't exist, maybe I wouldn't have based my business on that software in the first place because I'd worry that somebody else would notice that it's profitable and use it to run their business.…
Your non-trivial software is already in violation of scores or even hundreds of existing patents. You should get as many software patents as possible to cover your ass.
> Patents are necessary to encourage people to innovate
[looks around] In software, this is not the case.
Software patents are a good idea in theory, but in practice, the baby needs to get thrown out with the bathwater.