This is a silly forum in which to have a long debate :). I will admit, I mostly agree that the vast majority of software patents should probably be invalid, and that the existing system leaves a lot to be desired.<p>A couple of important points:<p>&gt; They are still making innovative products, but they distorted their market power and millions of poor Indian citizen&#x27;s lives were immeasurably worse off for it.<p>No, most innovation in new drugs happen in countries with strong patent protection. There is a lot of development outsourced to India, but almost nothing innovative on the development side. That isn&#x27;t to say India&#x27;s policy doesn&#x27;t make sense for them, but they are essentially just stealing from the US and other countries. Imagine if that were true worldwide 20 years ago. Health insurance would be a lot cheaper, yes, but a large percentage of drugs developed in the last 20 years would not exist. It&#x27;s a trade off that maximizes a longer term return.<p>&gt; infringement<p>Yeah, I was just pointing out that a lot of the patent system is designed to protect people who are being infringed by larger entities. Just because it is abused by others doesn&#x27;t mean it doesn&#x27;t serve a purpose.<p>&gt; patents distort markets<p>Of course they do, but it is not necessarily net negative.<p>&gt; demonstrated that patents aren&#x27;t orthogonal<p>Yes, that is a very long discussion. However, it should be fairly obvious that the software developed by industry and the software available in the open source world is not the same. I would go so far as to say the open source world is an order of magnitude or two smaller than software from for-profit entities. There are different incentives for releasing open source software than starting a business, and patents are designed to make the latter more attractive.<p>&gt; Patents attempt to produce a monopoly on an idea and prevent anyone else from capitalising on it for decades.<p>No, patents provide a temporary, licensable monopoly on an implementation. You don&#x27;t patent the idea of holding paper together, you patent the concrete implementation and manufacture of a paper clip.<p>More importantly, they require disclosure of that implementation to the rest of the world. I think this gets lost when people talk about removing the patent system. The primary purpose wasn&#x27;t to encourage invention, but to make sure people disclose it.