Why so afraid of the software patent? All other areas of business benefit from patents - and don't tell me that the IT-business is oh-so-different, because it's not. It's only not-as-mature-as-the-others.

It seems that the IT-business all of a sudden is afraid of progress - or is it afraid of business?

1. Because software patents instead of fostering innovation hinders innovation and only protects old technologies for dinosaur companies. That this is so is because of a particular model of innovation in the IT sector.
The way innovation works in this sector, as studied by Clayton Christensen in his landmark book "The Innovators Dilemma", doesn't agree well with patents. I elaborate on that point here:
http://www.classy.dk/log/archive/001162.html

2. Patents aren't property grants, even though patent proponents would have you think that way. They protect innovators against free riders in cases where its necessary. IT is not one of these cases.

3. This IS different from e.g. the situation in the medical sector, where the cost of first invention is orders of magnitude higher than the cost of reinvention. In the software sector that is simply not the case.

More arguments: http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/untruths/unprotected.html

The patents-hinders-innovation is as old as the hills and cannot be proven. Unfortunately, the same goes for the opposite position.

In my work I meet more and more innovative IT-firms interested in using patents in an active way - the thing is, the pro-patents front hasn't got the amount of skilled lobbyists that it's opponents use. And that makes the view that you hold the popular one - the classic story: all the small, poor developers are being squashed by the big, bad multinational. It so easy. It's just plain marketing combined with a burning faith. There's no real discussion of the matter involved.

The no-software-patent story makes me so tired - I'v heard it a million times before and it still has no ground in the reality of the innovative marketplace.

I'm not really going anywhere with this - I'm only making my position known.

Are you kidding? The pro-patents lobby is MUCH, MUCH stronger than the anti-patents lobby.
Reportedly Bill Gates didn't exactly threaten to move MS development, but he did meet with most European heads of state last year and he DID talk about patents.
The notion that the anti-patents movement is the bully is extremely wrong.

On faith vs argument: Let's take this conversation as an example. I AM providing arguments why my position is the right one. You are not. You are not even addressing the arguments I have given.

There are plenty of case histories on how patents are damaging innovation. They're just not European case histories.

Let me guess: the casestories are american? No wonder - their patentsystem is VERY different from ours and not one we're benchmarking!

The 'new' softwarepatent is merely a clarification of the rules that we already have.

I know I'm not providing arguments - it's because I've given up. You can't argue with faith.

You're not making sense.
I'm not arguing from faith but from certain well respected economic theories of innovation