Rant: Patents on Software

This SlashDot article "Parens on Patents" really struck a chord with me, and brought back alot of anger I have repressed for some time.  (yes, I am seeking professional help now  :p )

Basically, it discusses the fad of patenting software or its various features, and the subsequent stifling affect it has upon development. Many of the comments about this article really cover the main points, so I won't rehash, but I will give you an anecdote of how this affected me once:

So, I'm working on a project at my company where we want to help our customers organize their business by automating the sending of E-Cards as a meeting invitation. We started developing this application, but were forced to abandon it because some company has patented the concept of “Sending an Email with a Link back to a web-page that contains an invitation“ and were requiring a royalty of 25-cents per email. Since we wanted to offer this for Free to our customers, and didnt like paying people for their “Concept-Patent“, we asked our legal department to research the claim.  They spent months researching ways around it, but basically told us to we were screwed, and that we must either "come up with a different implimentation", or pay the royalty.

Now, its bad enough having management try to dictate code & functionality, but when Legal starts changing programs I get really upset.

So, the moral of this story is: If you are a fan of Open Source, then Patents should be the bane of your existance. Even if you are just an average developer with no care of open-source, you should at least be concerned about how this affects your future employment.

Write to your congressmen & congresswomen about the current abuse of Patents with software!