It seems nearly every day brings news of some new software patent that is pretty damn obvious and for which there should be easily locatable prior art. Today it's browser cookies, a few days ago it was web advertising. It's so common that Slashdot has a whole category for it !

As someone who, as a youth, applied for a patent with a friend (for a non-software idea), I can sort of relate to patents, but as a software developer I'm just plain scared and annoyed by most (all) software patents. The thought that every bit of code I write, or every system/file-format that I need to interoperate with, is patent encumbered is quite alarming.