Software Patents
If I invested a long time, inventing a new vacuum cleaner, you may agree that my investment should be protected. i.e. my competitors should not be allowed to copy my new invention without compensating me. Patents are the legal mechanism to protect the research and development investments made by companies (such as Dyson).
So far, patents sound good, but software patents are evil, here's why.
What if I patented the concept of "clicking a button to buy a book". This sounds ridiculous. Firstly, clicking a button is bloody obvious, and therefore it didn't take a large investment to come up with the "novel invention". Secondly, within the software industry, it is not the idea that demands high investment in time and skill, it is the creation of that idea. i.e. it takes a long time, by skilled people to write software.
If you think I've picked a daft example, you would be wrong. Amazon have patented One-Click Shopping , and sued others, who they thought infringed on their "invention".
The Amazon case is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, that is was a ridiculous patent, and the secondly, that Amazon actually used that patent aggressively. Most patents aren't used aggressively. IBM is thought to have the largest war chest of software patents, but it tends not to use them aggressively. Instead it uses them defensively. This is how it works: If one of IBM's competitors successfully files a patent, and then uses it aggressively against them, then IBM takes a look at its patents and threatens to retaliate. IBM have so many software patents, that the aggressive company is bound to be infringing one of them.
The EU has decided not to revive the software patent debate, so I think Europe will be free of this curse for a while. That just leaves the USA to untangle itself from the mess its got itself into.
Because the USA is screwed, it affects us too. For example, if I write software which infringes on a US software patent, then I cannot legally distribute it in the USA. As my customer base is limited, I may choose not to write such software, and therefore all potential European customers will lose out.
Patents and FOSS Software
FOSS software has a particular problem with patents. As most FOSS projects are not sponsored by large businesses, and are instead created by small groups of individuals, there is no means to pay the patent tributes.
Patents are the legal mechanism to protect R&D, in order to ensure that new and innovative products are created. However, if patents prevent FOSS, then that aim has been extinguished, and they are merely helping large companies (who can afford to litigate) at the expense of small companies and individuals (who cannot afford any form of litigation, either as the defendant or as the plaintiff).