Brian Kahin: Paradox and Ignorance in the Knowledge Economy. "The expansion of the patent system to embrace software and business methods has invited an unusual degree of public scrutiny. This scrutiny reveals both persistent underlying problems and the special difficulty of applying an industrial age system based on a one-size-fits-all ideology to a digital environment. The goal of patent policy is promotion of innovation and dissemination of new knowledge, but in practice the system often appears to work against these goals. Because the patent system is resolutely one-size-fits-all, there is a danger that innovation will be hostage to old regulatory and business models. Yet this unique form of regulation -- publicly enabled private regulation -- is self-obscuring so it is hard to know whether it is working as intended." Gehalten am 09.11.2002