Would you invest millions with your company in a new technology - which will take 2 or 3 generations of your product to cover the research costs, if you know that by the second generation - your competitors will have 'copied' your product and got those millions worth of research for free? Why not wait for someone else to do the research and 'copy' it from them? That's why patents were invented in the first place. It's all about money, not control. It's encouraging companies to invest in long-term and/or expensive research and assuring them they won't lose money on it, because companies are NOT about control. Claiming that is just spreading FUD. Money is their primary concern, and if they use it to control things, the reason is easily traceable back to money.
Patents work as long as what they stand for cannot be applied without a cost for each resulting product. This means the final product cannot be given away for free, which means you will make money by selling it somehow. If a company applies for a patent, they are also forced to reveal the general idea, concept or basics of the technology - which means the information is out-there and free. Applying the information however would cost you money if the patent is not expired.
Now the problem is that software doesn't cost a thing to reproduce. Anyone can write a piece of software with very limited cost. Reproducing software doesn't cost a thing, which means you are able to offer and spread it for free. I personally think the 'software patent' is seriously tricky. Without research from labs like Fraunhofer - you would not have an MPEG standard, and audio and video compression codecs would not be where they are now.
I think the licensing of the patents is the most important part of the patent-system that has to be reformed. Having ridiculous licensing conditions or disallowing competitors using the patented technology should be forbidden. The application of a technology in a product that guaranteed to be available at no cost other than the distribution cost should not be required to get a license. Charging for a bundle which includes free products that use patented technology should be allowed without licensing costs when the bundled software van be used independantly from the bundle. Offcourse this is not the only thing that should be changed, ridiculous patents should still be forbidden offcourse. Now this idea is far from perfect, but I think this would pretty much solve most gripes the 'free software movement' has with pattents:
- competition will be there for software. Free software will be able to compete with commercial software even if there is no other commercial competitor.
- Freely available software in any form (freeware or OSS) is possible at no cost without any risk for patent violation claims.
- Companies making money by distributing OSS software are not at risk.
- Selling hardware implementing patented technology costs money.
- Selling commercial software using a patented technology costs money.
Basicly: you're making money off a patented technology - you pay. Otherwise, you don't.
