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Eben Moglen is professor of law at Columbia University Law School. He serves without fee as General Counsel of the Free Software Foundation. You can read more of his writing at moglen.law.columbia.edu. These remarks were the keynote address at the University of Maine Law School's Fourth Annual Technology and Law Conference, Portland, Maine, June 29, 2003.

The simple question “what’s wrong with software patents?” stirs up controversy and divides the IT industry into two camps like no other. Every group has their own ideology about software patents. Those who don’t like them claim that they are anti-competitive, that they are tools used by industry giants to crush free and open software, that they are bad for innovation, that they are monopolies, etc. Those who like them claim that they are simply units of intellectual property, to be traded like any other commodity.