Sorry to nitpick, but there's a critical misunderstanding in the below:

1) The original purpose of patents (and copyright) was to foster innovation
   by offering a *TRADE* in that the patent/copyright holder is permitted a
   very *LIMITED* time monopoly on an idea or expression in return for
   full publication (so that others can build on the idea)*.  Patents are
   absolutely NOT (NO NOT EVER!) *intended* to provide financial incentive, that's a side-effect.
   The writers of the US constitution realized that the greatest financial
   incentive in a free market is to keep an invention secret (like the Coke recipe)
   and they created the patent and copyright systems in an effort to move
   ideas from the realm of trade-secret into the public domain.  This was done
   through a very clever trade, the holder gets a clear and simple monopoly
   that they don't have to struggle to keep (the courts will help), but only
   for a limited time (it's hard to keep a secret forever anyway)
   and society gets the benefit of others creating even more inventions
   deriving from the patented one, and full access to the patented invention
   once the term lapses (which is why everyone seems to be creating smart-cards
   these days, the original patents mostly lapsed a few years ago).

IMO, the critical problem with the term "intellectual property" is that it implies
a right to profit from the use of said "IP".  There is no right to profit from an
idea or innovation.  If you can, that's great, but don't expect the larger society
to help.  It's in society's best interests to actually limit how much one may
profit from an idea, because the greatest value in ideas is when they're shared,
and the more one entity profits from an idea, the less widely it can be shared
due to cost barriers.  Ideas are a public good, not private property, and the ONLY
proper role of government in this arena is exactly what the US constitution permits,
to offer the minimum required temporary incentives to overcome the selfish desire
to keep ideas a secret.  Our current system goes so far beyond that goal that it's
a national shame.

* http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=489&invol=141&pageno=150

Alan Dayley wrote:
> It's not a hoax.  However, it is probably one of the many, many patents
> that are applied for, most of which that are granted, whose only purpose
> is to lock the market on that idea.  In this case, the optimist in me
> hopes that no one, schools or otherwise, are dumb enough to accept such
> a deal.  And, I don't expect that MS expects to ever actually implement
> such a system.  But, if the market is ever accepting of this sort of
> thing, they are now the monopoly holder and so the market is squashed.
> 
> IMO, patents mostly have two purposes:
> - The original purpose is to foster innovation by granting the inventor
> a temporary monopoly to financially benefit from his idea.
> - The secondary side effect purpose of restricting markets and
> competition by holding patents but never actually implementing them in a
> product.  I lump patent holding companies in this group.
> 
> Most unfortunately the latter, side effect use is by far the most
> prevalent today.
> 
> Alan
> 
> jdawgaz@cox.net wrote:
>>> this IS a hoax, right?
>>>
>>>
>>> ---- "der.hans" <PLUGd@LuftHans.com> wrote: 
>>>> moin moin,
>>>>
>>>> http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37568
>>>>
>>>> Ugh!
>