Gary Becker. From Wikipedia.

Summary: Another new example of the everlasting call to kill all software patents and an example of Google entering the software patents fray

Economy (or "economics") is not much of a science and economists are not scientists. It's more like a religion, or dianetics, a scientific-sounding cult (the cult of patents is another story). The senior members adhere to man-made social constructs and propaganda of conformity. It's sounds like ecology, but there is nothing natural about it. It's artificial and subjective. Conformity to the group gets one a reward (e.g. from corrupt banking institutions). But some are wrongly called "Nobel-winning" -- an often-perpetuated mistake we got suckered by and a mistake repeated by this author who says advice against software patents comes from a "Nobel-winning economist" (here is what this prize actually is). To quote GigaOM:

Nobel-winning economist: end software patents and cut patent protection to 10 years

America’s patent system has been under fire for years but, in recent months, the criticism has grown louder than ever. There are currently six bills before Congress to fix the problem of “patent trolls” and now a leading economist is calling for even more dramatic measures.

Gary Becker is colleague of Judge Posner, who is also against software patents [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. There are numerous economists who challenge the patent system based on purely economic grounds, not just ethical grounds. They also antagonise software patents. We have covered examples here, noting the consistency for years.

The corporate press continues to glorify patents as though they are a business. Speaking of software patents, it is disappointing to see Google continuing to accumulate some more of them rather than pressure Congress to annul software patents. Here is Google's latest acquisition:

Google has acquired from the SR Tech Group a portfolio of U.S. patents and patent applications that includes several speech related patents.

The British press covered this too. For years we have urged Google (including by E-mails to managers there) to kill software parents, not legitimise them (see the InterDigital saga [1, 2]). Google is not being evil, but it is not being good here, either. It could use some public pressure. As one of the biggest lobbyists these days, Google sure could contribute to the end of software patents. ⬆