I used to think that it was indeed ‘only’ FOSS that was threatened by software patents, and that the morally bankrupt cretins responsible for patent system policy in the US and in the EPC signatory states and elsewhere would likely be able to continue, indefinitely, to feel quite comfortable with their ignorant and reckless extremism. I used to worry that perhaps my feelings of disgust and anger on discovering patents such as those on the RSA and FHT algorithms were probably entirely irrational. After all, patents are necessary for and promote innovation, right?

Then I read up on the history, philosophy and economics of the patent system - from Jefferson’s eminently rational and ethical views, through Machlup’s prescient warnings, to the most recent research by Jim Bessen et al, and - at the time of the notorious CII Directive in Europe - the famous petition condemning that Directive signed by several prominent economists. Of course it didn’t help my blood pressure to find out that there was in fact no good economic rationale for software patents, and the fact that I was lied to by my own government, by EC bureaucrats, and by an ex VP of the EPO didn’t exactly help either.

But despite having to read up on this dreary subject (and having to suffer the excruciatingly ghastly experience of reading hundreds of patent documents ;-), at least now I feel as secure in my opposition to software patenting and its innumerate and illiterate proponents as I do when opposing that other great affliction of modern times: pseudoscience and its practitioners and supporters. As I once wrote in an email, shortly after someone from the EC/EPO had claimed that the EPO does not grant software patents, “The EPO is to patent system economics as the Discovery Institute is to biology - minus the integrity and honesty”.