[openip] Re: "rights" and "freedoms"

[Richard Stallman]

    Patent reform is a much easier goal to reach than the entire elimination of
    patents.

It might looks that way, but actually reforming the way the US patent
office works is nearly impossible.  The US patent office has been
issuing absurd patents for some 150 years if not longer.  (In general
it is very hard to change the way a bureaucracy functions.)  The
Supreme Court tried to reform the patent office standards, by
overturning absurd patents, but it did not have any continuing effect.

I think we have as good a chance of excluding software entirely from
the domain of patent law, as we do of reforming the patent office in a
way that affects its competence.  Either one would require passing a
law.