Patents are theft...

Well at least that is the idea found here on article on the linuxuser.co.uk site.  Software patents are really starting to threaten our future and that of inivation.  When Apple can patent a left to write swipe as they did this week how can we ever expect people to want to inovate.  We all hear about some of them but how many just slip by without notice?  Do you want to spend days, weeks, months or years developing something only to be told that someone else already has a patent that covers that?  While it won't stop most people how many great innovations are we missing out on because of our current patent system?