A few weeks ago I found to my surprise that I'd been granted four patents. This was all the more surprising because I'd only applied for three. The patents aren't mine, of course. They were assigned to Viaweb, and became Yahoo's when they bought us. But the news set me thinking about the question of software patents generally.
Patents are a hard problem. I've had to advise most of the startups we've funded about them, and despite years of experience I'm still not always sure I'm giving the right advice.
Good essay on software patent issues. This guy fundamentally believes in software patents, but says they are administered wrong. A world without patents would be a world with secrecy, hampering innovation. Perhaps he is right, but how do we fix it?
Comments