On Patents
<i>If you own a software patent, you should feel bad.</i><p>Even as someone who feels we should be rid of software patents, I cannot for the life of me understand this statement.<p>I can believe, philosophically, that relatively high tax rates will benefit a society. That doesn't mean that, even in so believing, I wouldn't do my utmost to minimize the tax that I pay within the rules provided by the law. The question before me when I make such decisions is what makes sense for me as an economic actor, not what the broader policy for society should be. And there is no reason I should "feel bad" for acting in my own self-interest in that case even if I believe the rules should be otherwise.<p>So too, if I am a founder, I can abhor the idea of software patents while still using the full range of IP protections afforded by the law to enhance the value of my startup. If getting a software patent for my company's early-stage innovations enhances funding valuation, acquisition pricing, and competitive edge in the marketplace - and if the law says this is a perfectly legal way not only to protect but also to gain monopoly protection over intangible assets that my company has and others don't - my decision here will turn on weighing the costs of getting such protection (money costs, disclosure risks, etc.) versus the benefits, the likelihood of qualifying for it, and similar considerations having <i>nothing whatever to do with the abstract policy debate</i> concerning whether the law should afford such protection in the first place. What is more, if I don't avail myself of such protections and if a competitor later does so in a way that hurts my venture's prospects because I now have to surmount legal barriers that wouldn't even have been there had I acted to protect my company's legal interests in the first place, then I have done affirmative harm to the people who trusted me to run my company to its best advantage - whether they be my investors, my co-founders, my employees, or just my own family members who might suffer if that venture should fail. This does not mean I need to blindly pursue some form of artificial legal protections for my company's innovations. It means that I need to make intelligent judgments about availing myself of such protections as opposed simply to categorically rejecting the idea of using them. In short, I need to be smart about protecting my venture using the tools afforded by the law and not forego those tools out of some philosophical preconceptions I have about what the law <i>should</i> be. The "should-be" part of the law is basically irrelevant in this context for most entrepreneurial decisions of this type. And there is certainly no reason to "feel bad" owning software patents if they turn out to be helpful for one's venture in this context.<p>Maybe this will be seen as narrow, unenlightened, lawyer-driven thinking. It is, however, my universal experience in having dealt with countless founders over many years. Without exception, they have all acted consistently with the pattern I describe and there is no reason they shouldn't have. It makes perfect sense for a rational economic actor. Startups have enough risks as they are. There is no reason to add to them artificially owing to social pressures telling you to "feel bad" for doing what is right for your company.<p>I know the sentiments against software patents are strong here on HN but there is a big difference between a policy debate seeking to influence Congress and actions that make sense for individual actors having to deal with the realities of the law as it exists today. One can condemn the idea of software patents generally without necessarily passing censorious judgments about the actors who need to deal with the law as they find it.