In a 1991 memo [*] to his senior executives, Bill Gates wrote, “If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.” Mr. Gates worried that “some large company will patent some obvious thing” and use the patent to “take as much of our profits as they want.”
At the time, Microsoft had only eight patents to its name.
Today it holds more than 6,000 patents.
Only patent lawyers benefit from this arms race.
