My railing against software patents shouldn’t be new to you, dear reader. Recently, this tilting at windmills has generated some attention. Among other things, a new group of interesting people is forming a coalition named End Software Patents.
This group is being spearheaded by several very smart people, including Ben Klemens – a guest scholar at The Brookings Institution. Ben is also the author of Math You Can’t Use, a fascinating exploration of patents, copyrights, and software that I’ll review in depth at some point.
In the short term, this coalition is looking for examples of innovative and profitable software companies that have been successful without any patent activity of any sort. While this success doesn’t necessarily correlate with a desire to abolish software patents, we want to better understand real life examples of successful companies that don’t care about software patents.
If you fit this description and are willing to have a discussion, please contact me.