From the white paper:

The patent system is in crisis. Patents—particularly software patents—have become a tool for intimidation and expensive litigation, chilling the very innovation the patent system was supposed to encourage.

This report highlights how, since the mid-1990s, software patents in particular have proven to hinder rather than support innovation. For example:

• Software patents tend to be vague and overbroad, and they often cover every solution to a problem, rather than a specific solution, and leave the hard work of making functioning, usable products to others.

• The US Patent and Trademark Office does a poor job of reviewing software patent applications. One major issue is the limited time spent locating and reviewing previous inventions or publications, known as “prior art.”

• The recent flood of software patents has led to a dramatic rise of “patent trolls,” entities that monetize patents by suing or threatening to sue businesses, usually without making or selling a product themselves. Patent trolls now make up a majority of patent litigation. Their common tactics of frivolous lawsuits and forced settlements place a tremendous cost on innovators, businesses, and end users.

• Companies feel pressured to engage in a patent arms race, acquiring broad software patents for defensive purposes. If a company fails, its patents often end up in the hands of bad actors such as patent trolls.

In my personal opinion, the concept behind patents is that by providing a monopoly we encourage development and the sharing of information. The reality, at least in the software world, is that patents are used to discourage development. No company develops a software product because they can patent it, they develop it to improve their position in the marketplace. They protect their products with copyright. The growing library of patent information does not represent a resource to programmers, it is neither organized for useful search nor written in the language of programmers. There is a vast amount of information available to programmers for easy searching. We do not need to encourage companies to publish their algorithms – which, if patented, we wouldn’t use anyway. Development times are simply too short to go into negotiations on licensing – you find another algorithm. The few patents on non-obvious things such as the LZW patent have spurred the development of other algorithms that were deliberately not patented.

Unlike some in the EFF and others, I am entirely in favor of protecting the intellectual property of software developers like myself. I think that copyright law is the best way to do this. It is quick and low cost to acquire, which is important in such a fast moving industry with so many startups, it protects your investment in coding and testing and it allows everyone to build on ideas so that we can all produce more robust products.