More Patent Nonsense
Fred Wilson talks about the totally ridiculous nature of software patents in general. Facebook has patented the “news feed.”
Same with social news feeds. They [Facebook] are the dominant provider of social news feeds in the world. Because they out executed everyone else. But not because they invented the idea. Giving them a patent on this idea is lunacy. But the whole idea of software patents is lunacy. We need to eliminate software patents and we need to do it now.
The Patent System theoretically provides a very important protection to the young entrepreneur: a guarantee that if you invent something, nobody else can steal it right away.
In reality, it seems that more often than not, larger companies with deep pockets patent ideas that are already in common use, and then extract money from the unfortunate entrepreneurs.