> If you're a programmer, you can read software patents.

Here I can bring in a different definition of "can". I could if I wanted browse different software patents, but that just puts me or my company in more legal trouble especially if sometime later I happen to develop something similar enough to a patent I've previously read that I get sued over it. It's not a good idea to just read patents blindly if you have any interest in building stuff that might get popular.

Though I suppose it's probably safe to read the Linked List patent, which is one of the clearest and silliest I've ever seen: http://www.google.com/patents?id=Szh4AAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...