If ever there was a more clear case of the patent system encouraging not increases in innovation, but rather ceasing it, I've not heard it.
Oh yay. Now we can add some-obvious-thing in the clooouuudd! to all of the some-obvious-thing but on the intertubes.
I don't think anyone disputes that "patent law is killing job creation." (Note, however, that one can say that generally about most laws and regulations. Indeed, the FDA "is killing job creation," by making it so hard to sell potentially unsafe drugs and medical devices.) The real question is: "does the current system of patent law 'kill' more or less jobs than a reformed system where software patents are unallowable?"
Small-to-medium-sized businesses may flourish, adding some jobs in the process, but could a larger tech company have created more jobs based on software patents it is able to sometimes obtain via the patent office (or otherwise license legitimately or by settlement)?
Unfortunately, as he admits, it's creating plenty of work and jobs for lawyers, which we have a huge glut of. Lots of starving lawyers + burgeoning area of law = feedback effect where patent reform is fiercely opposed by law association lobbyists. Obviously that kind of work does not create wealth, it merely siphons it at best, but that argument might get drowned out in the financial-crisis-driven scramble to keep billable hours pipes full, regardless of the longer term concerns.
A lot of patents that get approved are seemingly obvious but clearly, to someone, it wasn't. And that makes me wonder what their life and interests and milieu is like. I suspect that until we're asking that question, the patent system will continue to suck.
