Why We Need To Abolish Software Patents
During my tech days, I co-authored four software patents. Each cost my startup about $15,000—which seemed like a fortune in those days. I didn't really expect these to give me any advantage; after all if my competitors had half a brain …
Context & Ripple Effects
The case against software patents has been building in tech commentary since GigaOM's antidote-to-software-patents argument in early 2008, but most of it came from observers rather than practitioners. What changes here is the witness: a founder who co-authored four patents and watched each one consume roughly $15,000 of startup cash while delivering, by his own account, no competitive edge against any competitor 'with half a brain.'
That detail matters because the standard defense of startup patenting is deterrence and leverage, and the author is testifying from inside the system that neither materialized for him. His conclusion — abolish the category outright — is the maximalist end of a debate whose moderate wings (limit them, redesign them) were still being argued when this ran.
First-order effects
- Founders weighing a patent budget now have a practitioner's cost-benefit data point: roughly $60,000 spent across four filings that produced no observed advantage over rivals.
- The abolition position gains a credible insider voice, sharpening the split between practitioners who see patents as dead weight and those who still treat portfolios as defensive armor.
Second-order effects
- If founders act on arguments like this one, money currently flowing to filing fees and counsel could shift toward shipping speed and trade-secret protection as the default moat — changing what investors treat as a defensible asset in a startup.
- Companies holding large software portfolios face a reputational calculus: aggressive enforcement looks less like protecting invention and more like taxing competitors who skipped the paperwork.
Third-order effects
- If enough practitioners publicly disavow the value of their own patents, pressure moves from blog commentary toward actual policy review of whether software should be patentable at all — with abolition, limitation, and redesign as the competing camps.
- The deeper structural question the piece forces: an IP regime designed for physical inventions being applied to code where replication costs nothing, meaning either the regime adapts or innovation-driven industries increasingly route around it.
The trend: Practitioner disillusionment with software patents is pushing the debate from individual blog complaints toward a broader policy fight over whether the category should exist, shrink, or be redesigned.