The USPTO Would Like to Partner with the Software Community ... Wait. What? Really? (Groklaw)

There are already government threats and free software licenses use them. The relevant law is copyright law. That law has led to some very expensive server side software being written and sold at a profit, some of which gets given to me in return for developing it :-)

I suspect that very expensive server software is not something that would be implemented unless there was a financial incentive to do so, although that incentive could be ability to charge people for using it. That us why people buy the expensive server software from us.

I think the angle than Knuth, Hoare, and any number of other people that ought to know, all think that software is mathematics. Do the lawyers think they know more about software that those people? I hope not.

One could also argue that software patents do not promote useful arts and as such should not allowed. Patents, copyright and other rights are not meant just as means of extracting money from people.