OSNews

That's a good summary on the patents issue Eugenia, and you and Miguel de Icaza may well be right on this. The US (and probably Europe) will shoot itself in the foot with patent wars, legal fees, lawyers and companies actively making money out of this. I name no names, but you know who they are.

I'm not actually worried about patents. They are a pain, and it means real innovation gets stifled but ultimately patents systems everywhere will get so bogged down that nothing will get done - nothing economically beneficial anyway. It has all got to come to a head some time, and warning of the dangers of patents in Europe and elsewhere isn't actually going to change that. You could argue it would be better to sit and do nothing .

Patents are used largely as a threat more than anything else. From the early wars in office software Microsoft and Lotus patented screens, functions and concepts rather than code. However, nobody complains about the legal threats to Open Office, KOffice or anything else. What will lead to problems is the trivial patenting of silly concepts and functions, and trademarking of words - some of them part of the English language, and some out in nature. Outside of software, we have seen that with Coco Channel trying to throw their weight around.

Over the course of the next ten years I think we will see the major collapse of the concept of patents because it will lead to such meltdown that nothing will get done. Many politicians are even waking up to this reality, albeit slowly. The patents situation is bad in every country, even without large scale patenting of software and concepts. Software will push it over the edge because software is without limits. It is not a physical product (and it is bad enough patenting those, as we have seen), no matter how Microsoft tries, in the same way that a vacuum cleaner is, and so just about every conceivable method is open to interpretation.

In short, it is going to be painful but ultimately the ridiculous patents situation will benefit us all. I say to Microsoft, Apple and others - go and patent all you like, and buy off the European Union. Then make my day and try and enforce those patents, and say goodbye to your business in the process. Even if they don't enforce them, as I believe Microsoft cleverly won't, the situation will still be intolerable.