The New Yorker on Business Process Patents

caledon writes "The New Yorker has a clear, concise, nontechnical essay by its finance columnist James Surowiecki criticizing business process patents: Patent Bending. 'Although we have always had a vibrant patent system, we've managed to strike a balance between the need to encourage innovation and the need to foster competition. As Benjamin Day, Henry Ford, and Sam Walton might attest, American corporations have thrived on innovative ideas and new business methods, without owning them, for two centuries. In the past decade, the balance has been upset.' Makes the argument persuasively."

Comments

an elegant solution

[Thinkit3]

Abolish patents. It's a wonder few bring up this possibility.