Good news: Cato Institute opposes software patent, too
binarybits writes “I’ve written an article for the free-market Cato Institute about how patents impede innovation in the software industry. It points out that people tend not to realize how vast the software industry is. It’s not just Google and Microsoft; virtually every organization has an IT department producing potentially-infringing software. Organizations as diverse as J. Crew and the Green Bay Packers have been sued for patent infringement. It’s crazy to expect all these organizations to worry about potential patent infringement. Hopefully the Supreme Court’s Bilski decision will lead to new limits on software patents.”
I’m sure that there is a diversity of opinion even among the objectivists. But I think it’s a good thing that an adjunct scholar for Cato Institute has come out against software patent. Given that Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged views patents in general as being favorable (and the government making a “gift” of them to themselves as monstrous), I was worried for a while where objectivists would stand on the whole “intellectual property” issue.
But if they can oppose software patents (which is clearly harmful to entrepreneurs, and by extension, to the society), I think I can hope that their general approach towards other issues, such as patents in other areas (such as business methods) and role of copyright, would be a reasoned, rational approach.