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Cost barrier to market entry
Software patents prevent competition and entrench monopolies, thus hurting consumers and preventing the proper functioning of the software market.
Supporting evidence
- Gowers Review of Intellectual Property
- "The evidence suggests software patents are used strategically; that is, to prevent competitors from developing in a similar field, rather than to incentivise innovation"
- Network competition through regulation
- The EuroLinux petition - 435,000 signatures against the harm of software patents to competition and innovation
Related pages on ESP Wiki
- Free software distributors paying patent tax - Microsoft uses software patents to force its competitors to pay for the right to develop software
- Less choice, more monopolies
- Used for sabotage rather than competition
External links
- Akamai attacks Limelight as well as other competitors
- Japan's 2nd most used word processor taken off the market in 2005:
- TechDirt: Help Function Patent In Japan Means All Copies Of Word Processor Get Destroyed, Feb 2005
- ComputerWorld: Tokyo court orders popular word processor off market, Feb 2005
