“Every method of doing business in cyberspace by definition
is instantiated in technology – code. Thus, every method becomes
subject to a patent….“
“But for a growing number of people, “Amazon.com” has a second
meaning. When it filed suit against Barnes & Noble to defend
its patent over the “one-click” technology, it stood for a
different trend in cyberspace. This is the trend to patent
cyberspace – the explosion of patents claiming rights to
technologies, and hence to ways of doing business, on the Net.”
“One of this growing number is Richard Stallman. Winner of a
MacArthur Foundation “genius grant,” founder of the Free Software
Movement, author of GNU – which made Linux possible – Stallman is
not quite as rich as Bezos. Nor is he as young. But among founders
of the Net, he has earned a certain respect as a man who speaks
from principle.”