Patents and smart phones

Here’s a rather long article on patent wars in the software industry especially with regard to smart phones.

The purpose of patent and copyright legislation is to restrict competition and allow some people to make excessive profits.  In this case it appears some of those profits are going to lawyers.

If we didn’t have patent legislation the smart phones would be even smarter and would be less expensive.  Probably a lot of lower-income people would benefit greatly.

I have a theory that genius is 90 per cent plagiarism.  Therefore anyone can be a 90 per cent genius which isn’t bad – except those who don’t listen (or who get caught by patents).