Free Software Foundation - End Software Patents

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"There is no authority that we know of which permits software per se to be considered statutory [patentable subject matter]." —-Patent Office board of administrative judges, October 2007 (source PDF)

Portion of patents granted every year by the Patent Office that are software patents: 15% (Bessen and Hunt, 2004)

Websites that may be violating a software patent as of January 2007: 155,583,825 (Netcraft)

"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." —Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft (cited in this New York Times op-ed.)

Estimated annual cost in legal fees incurred by software patents: $11.2 billion. (2008 State of softpatents)

Estimated economic benefit from software patents, as calculated by several pro-software patent economists: $0. (See the list of null results on the resources for economists page.)

Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Boston, MA, USA. We rely on support from individuals like you to carry out our worldwide mission to preserve, protect and promote the freedom to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer software, and to defend the rights of all free software users.

© 2008, End Software Patents

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