Any post that argues that software is worthy of intellectual property protection will get downvotes here. Whatever, I think the discussion matters.
The first counterargument to your position is that it's not based on any guiding principle, but rather the degree of overlap among innovations. That makes it difficult to specify, and hardly seems like reason enough alone to ban software patents. There may be a case for banning software patents, but it seems like the argument would need to be less subjective.
The second counterargument to your position is that you're comparing apples and oranges, on the basis of retail cost. The Dell PC is near the cutting edge of its field, while pretty much everything in the bicycle would have been invented before patents were invented. A better comparison would be the Dell's software vs. a mechanical system developed by Kiva for making their warehouse robots more effective (or a propulsion engineer at SpaceX making some cool rocket stuff). Mechanical engineers pushing the envelope are in the same position as software engineers.
Besides, isn't some of this transitive? If I can make something (unpatentable) in software, but I can build a (patentable) device to perform the same function, what difference makes the software embodiment less worthy? Surely with different incentives the patent system would be flooded with patents on single-use mechanical devices to take the place of the software patent flood we have today.
I can agree with you that the implementation of the current system is a mess, but I'm not sure that translates directly to the case for invalidating software patents. I'm not sure whether software should be patentable or not, I just have yet to hear a compelling case against the principle of software patents vs. other types of patents.
The first counterargument to your position is that it's not based on any guiding principle, but rather the degree of overlap among innovations. That makes it difficult to specify, and hardly seems like reason enough alone to ban software patents. There may be a case for banning software patents, but it seems like the argument would need to be less subjective.
The second counterargument to your position is that you're comparing apples and oranges, on the basis of retail cost. The Dell PC is near the cutting edge of its field, while pretty much everything in the bicycle would have been invented before patents were invented. A better comparison would be the Dell's software vs. a mechanical system developed by Kiva for making their warehouse robots more effective (or a propulsion engineer at SpaceX making some cool rocket stuff). Mechanical engineers pushing the envelope are in the same position as software engineers.
Besides, isn't some of this transitive? If I can make something (unpatentable) in software, but I can build a (patentable) device to perform the same function, what difference makes the software embodiment less worthy? Surely with different incentives the patent system would be flooded with patents on single-use mechanical devices to take the place of the software patent flood we have today.
I can agree with you that the implementation of the current system is a mess, but I'm not sure that translates directly to the case for invalidating software patents. I'm not sure whether software should be patentable or not, I just have yet to hear a compelling case against the principle of software patents vs. other types of patents.