Comment Re:Mask Work Law and Why the Heavy Process? (Score 1) 274
There are plenty of resources online that get you from nothing to your first "Hello, World!" program in a matter of minutes. The same is not true of hardware circuits -- especially if you want to manufacture them at all in a commercially viable way.
This analogy is rather flawed.
Actually... the analogy is not really that flawed. Your first "Hello, World!" program is about as complicated for software as wiring a light bulb to a battery is for hardware. I'm not arguing for or against software patents, though personally, I feel software should be patentable if it exceeds a certain threshold of complexity. Something along the lines of, "Wow! I'd have never thought of doing that." should be the litmus of whether the software is complex enough to be patentable (and should be done by someone with expertise in the applicable field).