Seriously, isn't it obvious? Look at the purpose of the patent law. It's supposed to promote innovation for the benefit of the society, or how it formally sounds: "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". Software patents do exactly the opposite. They not only don't promote any innovation or progress, they stifle it.

Thank you for elaborating on your position. Upvoted for content.

That said, note that this isn't an abuse of the system--it is very much using it to the letter of the law. Note further that, at least in America it would seem, we place a very high value on the letter (as opposed to the spirit) of the law.

I still think there isn't a fully developed moral argument here, but at least you've elaborated on your position. For what it's worth, I think the rough sketch of the argument would go something like: scarcity is Bad, knowledge promotes nonscarcity therefore Good, patents intended to promote knowledge therefore Good, wording of patents allows companies to act to decrease knowledge there Bad.

I just wanted to make sure you had a better backing than the usual "Oh noes patents are teh evil and the abuses you see".

If we're ever going to fix this mess, we need to make sure our ideology and reasoning is in line and clear.

Something of that sort. You can also structure it as:

- Knowledge and progress are beneficial for the society. - Inventions and discoveries promote knowledge and progress. - Patents are supposed to encourage inventors to publish their work thus helping the promotion of the above. - If applied badly, patents can be misused to serve totally different goals (like monopolizing the technology or knowledge), hurting the society in result. So the system needs to avoid that.

Software patents are the perfect example of the case where the original goal is reversed. I.e. by the nature of the software, patents only hinder innovation. So they should not be applied to software at all.

And that's why I called it unethical, rather than illegal. Patent aggressors might appeal that their actions are legal (within the current broken system), but since they have negative impact on the society and serve totally the opposite goal, they are unethical.

It's a form of blackmail.