Comment Re:Damn. This sucks. (Score 5, Insightful) 160
I'm not joking guys. We really planned on making our money on patenting our business model. We figured the big corporate bastards have made it impossible for tiny businesses like ours to make money and stay in business any other way so we'd patent our business model to protect ourselves from the giant behemoths. What will happen if you can't patent a business model is the behemoths who were in the same niche but slightly less profitable will look over and see you making money hand over fist and decide to copy your homework. What can you do? You're tiny. You're toast! But wait! I have a business model patent! You have to *buy* me! That means I get one last pay-check before you cut me loose!
They take that away and now we're defenseless in front of gigantic corporations who have the resources to just wholesale copy our model.
And what if the big corporations go on patenting sprees and start patenting anything imaginable? Just like all patenting has come down to. Any idiot realises that patenting was never created to benefit "the small players." Really, conspiracy aside, but how much influence does small businesses contra large businesses have on politics and politicians? Do you think there is one single top politician who doesn't own stock in one or many large corporations? And it doesn't have to be a plot or a cartel, you can be a very honest politician but when that opportunity comes along the temptation to make a few extra hundred thousand can become too much. Also it does help if you can pretend you're doing it for "the small players."