I'm excited for the software industry by any development that loosens patent rights. However, I am also concerned for medicine and other capital-intense industries that need strong patent laws to make innovation worthwhile. Why can't we have separate patent laws for separate industries? If our goal is "to encourage the useful arts", then this makes perfect sense.
Basically, an inventor needs an expected value return of X to have the incentive to invent, where X is the amount that invention costs (including opportunity costs). X is billions of dollars in pharma and only a few thousand in software.
Look which companies line up on different sides of any patent debate. It's informative.
Quite agree with your opinion about patent rights. Those who innovate are in trouble. Those who are copycats, are happy. Good artists innovate. Great artists steal.
It takes a lot of internal centering, vision and experience to be creative. Sometimes people get lucky w/ one idea between the age of 21-30. Them they "peter" out for the rest of their lives.
Basically, an inventor needs an expected value return of X to have the incentive to invent, where X is the amount that invention costs (including opportunity costs). X is billions of dollars in pharma and only a few thousand in software.
Look which companies line up on different sides of any patent debate. It's informative.