Patent B Major

Patents are great for inventors; they make it so an inventor has sole rights to things he invents. Copyrights do the same thing, but are used for artistic works. A key difference between patents and copyrights it that even when an author has a copyright, he doesn't own the pieces he used: namely words. Even when the author creates a new word or phrase, other authors can use them all they wish. It is only once the author has put many of these small pieces together that he has any claim to ownership. Writing software is very similar. We all use very small pieces to make a greater whole.  It would be foolish to give a patent to someone for a small piece that many other people are going to use. That would be the same as giving a composer the patent for the chord of B Major.  If nobody could use that chord ever again, the music industry would suffer.  For that exact reason, the software industry suffers because of unneeded patents.