How to fight software patents -- singly and together (NewsForge)

[Posted September 9, 2004 by cook]

Richard M. Stallman has written an article on NewsForge in which he compares software patents to land mines. "fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria. You cannot expect to defeat every patent that comes at you, any more than you can expect to kill every monster in a video game: sooner or later, one is going to defeat you and damage your program. The U.S. patent office issues around 100,000 software patents each year; our best efforts could never clear these mines as fast as they plant more."

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