Z:gnu-www-ja-guardian-article--dcb5e5-The monopolies are patents, ea/en

The monopolies are patents, each one restricting use of one or several of these software ideas. We call them &ldquo;software patents&rdquo; because they restrict what we programmers can make software do. How do these monopolies work? If you wish to use your computer as a word processor, it must follow instructions that tell it how to act like a word processor. This is analogous to instructions found on a musical score, which tell an orchestra how to play a symphony. The instructions are not simple. They are made up of thousands of smaller instructions, much like sequences of notes and chords. A symphonic score embodies hundreds of musical ideas, and a computer program uses hundreds or thousands of software ideas. Since each idea is abstract, there are often different ways to describe it: thus, some ideas can be patented in multiple ways.