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Yeah, the only way for this to play out is in the courts. You cant just have the gov't (executive or legislative) just broadly declare "no more software patents". All that would do is make the existing software patents much more valuable and reward those who have them. Because you can be sure that you won't be able to get them away from everyone that has them.

So the only real course would be for the courts to declare that they weren't valid to begin with.



> "Yeah, ..."

There's a difference between saying 'no more software patents from now on,' and 'all those we granted before are automatically invalid.'

My take: while the first one is probably ok, the second would raise specific constitutional problems.

It sounds like you feel both issues are best left to the courts, for public policy reasons independent of the 5th Amendment.

Against my better judgment, I should point out that those positions are not really the same, and that you probably don't actually agree with me.




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