>OTOH, not everyone considers that protection to be worth the effort
>involved. See, for instance, Don Lancaster's trenchant observations on the
>value of patents. Writing in MIDNIGHT ENGINEERING and in THE INCREDIBLE
>SECRET MONEY MACHINE II, he makes the case that patents are a money sink
>that only benefits attorneys, and that patents offer zero protection for
>the small entrepreneur. If your idea has any commercial value, somebody
>bigger than you will steal it. They can outspend you in court and justice
>will not be done.

Check out Phil Karn's home page and see what he has to say about patents.
(Nothing good.)  Karn is the guy who, among other things, has been twitting
the powers that be regarding exporting crypto software.  So far, he has a
ruling that a book containing crypto software may be exported, but a floppy
disk containing the same software is munitions and can't be exported.  In
his spare time, he writes operating systems.

http://www.qualcomm.com/people/pkarn/