It’s times like this that I’m proud to be a kiwi. Despite lobbying by certain business interests, it looks like New Zealand is going to beat the US and most of Europe to the punch in outlawing software patents.
This is a huge win for the IT industry in New Zealand. The patent system was designed to encourage innovation, but thanks to “licensing companies” which litigate without producing anything and the use of patents on obvious techniques to obstruct competitors, patent law has been doing quite the opposite.