Summary: Excessive patenting, or the approach towards 10 million patents in the US alone, shows that patent quality and scope have been totally forgotten because of the industry which profits from them while producing nothing

IBM's patent chief, who is still promoting software patents in the US and overseas (specifically India nowadays), feels upset by/about this new article which basically says the truth about IBM's 'safety net' strategy, which is suing far smaller rivals using software patents -- a rather shameful act. To quote the article, authored by Noah Smith (assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University):

Secrecy is the bane of science, since all really great breakthroughs are actually a chain of small discoveries. Each scientist or team of scientists eagerly reads the latest results from other labs and adds some small but brilliant insights or critical pieces of data, then releases the new finding as quickly as possible for the rest of the scientific community to gobble up. But if billion-dollar patents are at stake, universities -- which end up owning much of the intellectual property that comes out of professors' discoveries -- have a strong incentive to pressure their scholars to keep new findings and ideas under wraps.

In other words, the intellectual property system threatens to return science to the dark ages of Newton and Leibniz.

This is only the latest concern over the intellectual property system. Economists have been warning for some time that IP laws, intended to foster new discoveries, might end up doing the opposite. Many industry observers believe that patents are holding back innovation in the technology industry. There is even some evidence that the rise of IP might have exacerbated inequality. Worries over the extension of IP laws in the international arena constitute the most valid and important criticism of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

Smith rightly says that there's "even some evidence that the rise of IP might have exacerbated inequality." Consider India.

Software Patents in India

Sharad Sharma wrote this article about software patents in India (eerily similar to what was found in the media last week). Titled "Hope for IT innovation, not litigation," the article says:

One of the persistent threats to India’s software product ecosystem is from the constant push by MNCs for allowing software patents in India.

India’s nascent software product industry is growing rapidly and is on a trajectory where we can see global brands like Amazon, Google and Facebook emerge in the next 10 years.

One of the persistent threats to India’s software product ecosystem is from the constant push by MNCs for allowing software patents in India.

IBM's shameless lobbying for software patents in India ought to be recalled. It's all about domination and control (or a form of subjugation by limits on thinking), not innovation.

Patents do have a place in several domains, but software isn't one of them. Software is already covered sufficiently well by copyright law (or copyleft). ⬆