“It’s like they tried to patent a time machine, and they told you how big it was, and the color of the seats, but neglected to mention how it travels through time.”
Software patents don't promote innovation, they STRANGLE it.

At the Linux Foundation's annual LinuxCon event this week, Columbia University law professor and Software Freedom Law Center founder Eben Moglen explained that prospects for software patent reform are bleak and that the time has come for the free software community to start finding ways to solve its patent problems by using the patent system itself.

The patent Red Hat paid for a few weeks ago is no longer valid.

" The future of software patents in Europe is uncertain. The Software Patent Directive was rejected by the European Parliament on the 6th of July 2005, after seven years of campaigning by people in FSFE and other organisations - most notably, one of our associate organisations, FFII. This was a monumental victory and displays the legislative competence of the Free Software community. However, the struggle is not over. Information about the current status of software patents in the EU can be found in this November 2007 blog entry: Do software patents exist in the EU?

The software patent issue is likely to return via initiatives such as the Community Patent or the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA)..."

Software patent law is not for the faint hearted. Now the FSF has funded a new video where top hackers and legal experts explain where the idea came from and just why it is so bad for free software. With increasing evidence that patents harm, rather then help, innovation, is the tide beginning to turn against software patents?

More resistance to software patents and an example (in video) of patent madness.

Large companies are spending more on patents than on research and development. The number of patent lawsuits is exploding. Software patents are extra toxic to free software because there cannot be per copy royalties. And they certainly are making the end user have less choices as demonstrated by blocking of several products because of patent suits around the world.

"...The legislature (the European Patent Convention) says that software ideas are not patentable.

The executive (the European Patent Office) ignores this and approves software patent applications.

The judiciary (the national courts) usually declares the EPO's software patents to be invalid whenever there is a court case. .."

Red Hat and Novell stood up to a patent bully and got a favorable jury verdict in the IPI trial which invalidated some software patents that should never have been issued. It's hard to see how that's not a good thing for open source. It's also good that the particular battle has inspired discussion of the need for fundamental reform of the U.S. patent system.