Howdy all, Relevant for our ongoing fight against software idea patents: The Electronic Frontier Foundation rightly uses the recent ruling in the ongoing Eolas patent debacle to point out that, despite a not-insane decision in this particular instance, this is not a good situation to have occurred: That's the good news. The bad news: it came after the patents already caused plenty of damage. Companies large and small have taken licenses from Eolas rather than pay millions to fight in court. Many, such as Tim Berners-Lee (who testified during trial), warned about the dangers of the Eolas patents […] We couldn't agree more, but let's go a step further. What the Eolas patents make clear is that the system isn’t working. We’ve been saying it for years, yet both Congress and the courts have failed to fix the problem. In the now infamous Bilski case, the Supreme Court gave the green light to business method patents, and, consequently, to software patents. But the patent system, which is largely a one-size-fits-all program, simply stops making sense when we start to talk about software. <URL:https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/why-patent-system-doesnt-play> -- \ “I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I | `\ prayed with my legs.” —Frederick Douglass, escaped slave | _o__) | Ben Finney