CPK Smithies

UK

Visionary

Why should software patents be a special case?

If you say, "well, patents are drawn too broadly," or "there are so many patents that it's impossible to avoid accidental infringement," or "patent lawyers cost so much that inventive individuals can't afford them," then you are making the point, I think, that the patent system as a whole has grown unwieldy.

I have yet to see an argument that could not equally apply to an inventive hardware or mechanical designer with limited means.

Is the logical solution to abandon the patent system altogether? Or to reform what we have?

Remember that to be patentable, an invention must be useful, novel, and not obvious to someone ordinarily skilled in the art. It is at least questionable whether accidental infringements are mostly due to the fact that ignorant examiners have allowed patents that are in fact obvious to ordinary practitioners.

I cannot help thinking that if the patent system were better used, then impecunious inventors would be better protected.

The rational alternative, it seems to me, is to leave all inventors equally without recourse to law and thus at the mercy of imitators.