I guess there are a few kinds of arguments about the right approach. Legal, economic and religious.
At lest the religious argument are the one I value most. One concept is that ideas should be free. Another is that ideas are property which should be respected.
The legal argument is that it is difficult to create independently many kinds of software without infringing some patent. This implies that patents are being granted on things that are obvious to those skilled in the art. I.e. most patents are probably not valid. An alternatively the legal argument is that software is mathematics and mathematics is not legally patentable.
And the economic argument is that these monopolies are used by established players to stifle innovation, for example the history of flight in Europe and the US, where the Wright brothers patents killed innovation.
I think it is a really hard issue, because I don't think it can be determined well with any system of governance that we have. The voters are not well informed so democracy won't work. Lobbyist and experts represent established monopolies which are not innovative, so other systems won't either.
At lest the religious argument are the one I value most. One concept is that ideas should be free. Another is that ideas are property which should be respected.
The legal argument is that it is difficult to create independently many kinds of software without infringing some patent. This implies that patents are being granted on things that are obvious to those skilled in the art. I.e. most patents are probably not valid. An alternatively the legal argument is that software is mathematics and mathematics is not legally patentable.
And the economic argument is that these monopolies are used by established players to stifle innovation, for example the history of flight in Europe and the US, where the Wright brothers patents killed innovation.
I think it is a really hard issue, because I don't think it can be determined well with any system of governance that we have. The voters are not well informed so democracy won't work. Lobbyist and experts represent established monopolies which are not innovative, so other systems won't either.