[Patents] the burden factor in soft vs hard

[Gregory Aharonian srctran@world.std.com]

Luuk fantasizes:
>The difference is that in sw, the information = the product.  In these
>other industries, there are still production lines to be set up to
>etch the wafers/assemble the DNA/copy the whatevers.

Wrong, at least here in the US.  For example, designers of hardware
circuits and systems (coded in VHDL etc.) earn about $500,000,000 a
years selling their designs to companies that make the actual
hardware.  That is $500,000,000/year in license fees (some patented,
some kept as trade secrets) where the information = the product.
Similarly with people who sell knowledge about DNA sequences.  Sure,
at some point something physical is produced, but in the middle stages
in these non-software industries, all that is being exchanged (for
sale, some protected by patents) is information.  

Greg Aharonian