Some interesting comments, I'd be interested in hearing what would you change with patents, or if abandon altogether - what could be used to replace them without causing disruptions for all the small software shops that currently use patents to protect their innovation?

without patents - how would a small guy with a software innovation able to survive without being able to patent their innovation?

Tell me because I want to know, I've got something I feel is pretty worthy that I have spent considerable time & effort on but know that without protection bigger fish will copy-paste my innovations into their next service pack or website update.

ahem, please show some good examples to backup your claim (where a Chinese product has infringed an american product that was patented in the U.S.). Good luck.

Two of the large proponents of this so-called Patent Fairness are Google and Microsoft. Let's take a look at these companies financial situations:

Google:
-Profit margin=20%
-Profits=$8billion per year
-Cash=$15billion

Microsoft:
-Profit margin=28%
-Profits=$20billion per year
-Cash=$20billion

Seems that the large software companies have had very little problems competing in today's environment. How much more profitable do they need to be? Or is this more a result of soul-less corporations relentless search of increasing their profits?

These same large corporations love to throw around the term "patent trolls" but it is difficult buy their story that the small inventor is hurting or impeding them.

In fact, the last time they tried patent reform many small inventors spoke up AGAINST such a reform citing that the world is already tilted against them - and such reforms would only increase the leverage the large companies already have. Many small inventors are unable to get any traction when approaching the large software companies in selling their innovation.

In fact - small software inventors have found that their only chance to introduce their innovations to the marketplace is by trying to get a license deal rather than compete with a Google or Microsoft or even much smaller corporations. Many inventors ask for a small fee of almost always less than 1% but we don't hear Google's or Microsoft's point out how little the innovations actually cost.

There is plenty of proof that innovation occurs at the small companies (in fact, the Google's of 10 years ago, and the Microsoft's of 30 years ago).

Large companies would love nothing more than get rid of patents and then simply monitor competitors for the best innovations and then incorporate those into the next service pack or website update.

Interesting how large companies like Google have the resources for people like Michelle Lee and "Head of Patent Strategy". You think the small inventor has time or resources for this?