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Re:Patently Absurd - Copyright Law Can Meet the Needs of Sof... by WildUtah on Friday November 04, 2011 @01:27PM (#3196916)
This is nice because the Republican Supreme Court justices voted 4-0-1 in favor of the maximum possible patenting of software in the Bilski case last year. Democrats were 4-0 against software patents.

Scalia was the one deciding vote and refused to join either side's opinion on the actual subject of software patents. His decision is tentative and equivocal on the subject of software and business method patents.

This article appears in the National Review, the thinkiest of the Republican news magazines. Perhaps it can help bring a little of the craziness among Republican judges back to reason on a subject central to our industry's future on these shores.

Re:Patently Absurd - Copyright Law Can Meet the Needs of Sof... by tptacek on Friday November 04, 2011 @02:06PM (#3197079)
Generally speaking, even though it probably feels unnatural and even dumb to have to think this way, if you have to frame a comment in terms of "Republican" and "Democrat", you're probably hurting the discourse on HN.

As it stands, I promise you there are many many conservative technologists who agree with your take on the patent system, but have wildly different takes on e.g. public sector unions and school choice.

(I'm not one of them; I'm a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. Ironically, I'm actually less sold on how horrible patent litigation is than most of my conservative friends.)

Speaking of judges --- and I thought your horse-race analysis was interesting, even if it made me queasy --- to the extent that there is really a such thing as a "Republican" or "Democrat" judge (as opposed to a liberal-leaning or conservative-leaning judge, or an "orthodox" or "reform-minded" judge) --- there are influential conservative judges who do not have knee-jerk pro-patent thoughts. What does Posner think about the patent situation?