What does the software industry think about software patents?
In their own words
When I talk to policymakers in DC about patent reform, I always suggest they consider simply eliminating the most problematic class of patents, software patents. It is remarkable how many of them respond that this sounds great in theory, but that they don’t want to pick a fight with the software industry.
This is typical DC logic. Software patents are goodies for software industry. If we take away their goodies, they will be mad at us.
While there are a handful of technology companies that benefit from software patents, in my experience, the overwhelming majority of software companies and engineers oppose software patents. In order to document this claim and clear up any remaining misconceptions, here are their own words.
“For many years, I have thought that software patents should either be eliminated or dramatically shortened. It’s impossible to measure the toll they’ve had on the software industry, but on balance, it has been negative.”
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
“I would get rid of software patents altogether.”
Mark Cuban, entrepreneur and investor
“When I started out with my first company, Zip2, I thought patents were a good thing and worked hard to obtain them. And maybe they were good long ago, but too often these days they serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors. After Zip2, when I realized that receiving a patent really just meant that you bought a lottery ticket to a lawsuit, I avoided them whenever possible.”
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, CEO of SpaceX
“I’d personally prefer to see a world where software patents don’t exist.”
Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase
“There are a lot of people complaining about lousy software patents these days. I say, stop complaining, and start killing them…Most issued software patents aren’t ‘inventions’ as most people understand that word. They’re just things that any first-year student learning Java should be able to do as a homework assignment in two hours.”
Joel Spolsky, CEO of Stack Exchange
“Software patents should be abolished…And I am absolutely sure that if we got rid of patents tomorrow innovation wouldn’t be reduced at all, and the only losers would be lawyers and patent trolls.”
Chris Dixon, partner at Andreessen Horowitz
“I cannot come up with a single defensible reason for software patents.”
Brad Burnham, co-founder of Union Square Ventures
“I’d happily sacrifice all of Autodesk patents if the rest of software would follow.”
Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk
“As the founder and CEO of a successful small software company, I would strongly urge that software patents be highly restricted, or even eliminated.”
Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho
“I don’t think there should be software patents.”
Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat
“The basic problem with patents is that you’re trying to assign property rights to something that doesn’t deserve property rights…It’s just not right, it shouldn’t exist.”
Fred Wilson, co-founder of Union Square Ventures
“I think patents are a scourge on the software industry. Patents are a tremendous disservice.”
Vishal Sikka, CEO of Infosys
“Software patents are like smoking — it started with an experiment to improve health. It tasted quite good and it soon became a fashion statement. But today smoking kills.”
Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL
“[Software patents are] only useful to patent trolls and large companies with deep pockets who can afford to do something about them.”
David Sacks, CEO of Yammer
Eli Dourado is a research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and director of its Technology Policy Program. Follow @elidourado on Twitter.
