Z:gnu-www-ja-software-patents--9ba859-You see, the advocates of soft/en

You see, the advocates of software patents say &ldquo;well yes, there may be problems but more important than any problems, the patents must promote innovation and that is so important it doesn't matter what problems you cause&rdquo;. Of course, they don't say that out loud because it is ridiculous but implicitly they want you to believe that as long as it promotes progress, that outweighs any possible cost. But actually, there is no reason to believe it does promote progress. We now have a model showing precisely how patents can retard progress. The case where that model can fit describes the software field pretty well; Incremental innovation.