Russia profits either way.

They got lots of carbon credits when they signed Kyoto treaty to reduce carbon emission levels, and then had their industry production drastically drop from collapse of Soviet Union. Estimated worth of those carbon credits is about 20-60 billion $.

Or they'll lobby for extension of software patents as they did with copyrights.

While you cannot exceed speed of light, sure having faster-then-light group speed can help in some applications!
Look at it from a simple example - a sattelite flying above the Earth that sends some file. As long as it covers large area, you can propagate this file faster then it'd took sending it through wires. Yes, it'll require "preparation" (you need to upload file to satellite first), but you'll get faster file distribution in the end. Each recipient gets his file at a speed of light, but group bandwidth increases immersely.