There needs to be balance...

It's sad that tech companies are using patents in order to keep competitors from doing business.

To make matter worse, companies that are known to be leading innovators are the ones that engage on patent wars the most often. The current system seem to be putting a premium on those who can defend the current state of things, instead of putting that premium on actually brining forth innovative products to the marketplace.

Because of this, is no wonder than in some areas innovation seem to be at a standstill. The threat of being closed by bigger players with deeper pockets to play the system, keeps many small innovative players from even trying to put their products out.

The system needs to balance things. There should be protections to keep people from taking ideas and not compensate the one who originally put it out, while making it easy enough to use ideas on different products.

Laws need to benefit the most people, and not protect just a narrow band of groups. Things are as they are because people in charge of making laws and regulations are not really thinking on the benefit for most people.

By not letting easy use to innovate on software, the real loss to the people is difficult to quantify. Specially since is hard to put a number, or percentage, on new ideas that weren't developed because of the threat of being shut down by a bigger competitor afraid of losing some aspect of the control over the software itself, or profit that could be generated at some point in the future.

If you really want to benefit the most people and make the marketplace more vibrant, make it easier to innovators to use ideas of others while the one who came up with it can make a living out of it.