It is easy to say today that everyone knows what the concept of a shopping cart is and that anyone could have come up with the idea of applying that concept to online shopping.
This is why a common argument against software patents is, if not to abolish them, then limit their life cycle. 20 years for a shopping cart patent is way too long.
Can you imagine if Friendster was granted a patent on the type of social networking that MySpace and Facebook implemented, and they were denied licenses to operate while the patent was in effect, they couldn't launch until 2022.
This is why a common argument against software patents is, if not to abolish them, then limit their life cycle. 20 years for a shopping cart patent is way too long. Can you imagine if Friendster was granted a patent on the type of social networking that MySpace and Facebook implemented, and they were denied licenses to operate while the patent was in effect, they couldn't launch until 2022.