Tim Lee (Not Tim Berners-Lee!) on Software Patents:
In a memo to his senior executives, Bill Gates wrote, “If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.”
Back when I was toiling at The Worst Job I Ever Had, there was talk of a debate between J. Bradford Smith, MSFT’s general counsel, and Larry Lessig, a man who need no introduction, on intellectual property in the digital age. I guess it never came to pass, but I thought at the time it might have been an interesting dialog, no matter how little of it I understood.