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If software patents are legalized, then that will result in significant costs to all IT companies. It's more efficient to spend money now to influence the political process and solve the problem.

The success of the political efforts to prevent the legalization of software patents is also a question of money. Those who want software patents spend many millions of Euros. It's time for those companies that are against software patents to contribute money to such initiatives.

Preventing the legalization of software patents is the first and most efficient line of defense. If software patents do get legalized, then all IT companies will have to somehow deal with the problem. They will spend money on "defensive patenting" but they'll never have enough defensive patents to really deter a large corporation from an attack. Even if they amassed a large number of patents over time, those would be absolutely useless against productless profiteers.

The mere cost of defense against any patent infringement allegation is very high. You can quickly spend hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of Euros just trying to prove that some patent should never have been granted. So all other defensive measures are of limited value, and they may work well for a number of years but then you finally face a patent assault that you can't fend off. Only a political decision against software patents can solve the problem reliably.

If you're ready to spend some money on political patent defense now, then there are two possibilities for that. You can make a donation to the FFII or contact us at "nsp-help at ffii dot org".

You may consider saving money on organizations that lobby for software patents. If your company is a member of some industry association or whatever other group that lobbies for software patents, then you should seriously consider leaving them. You will save membership fees, and that money is much better spent on the fight against software patents. It's unlikely that there will be any political issue of such significance to our industry again in the near term. So if an organization doesn't help you to prevent software patents but works for your larger competitors that want to crush you, then they certainly don't even deserve a single cent from you.