" A powerful chemical company that poisons a town’s water table can do precisely the same thing."
Isn't it illegal to poison towns' water tables? That seems like a pretty severe flaw in your analogy, since presumably you don't think suing people for patent infringement and then offering to settle is or ought to be illegal.
There's also the fact that chemical companies provide clear social value: people buy what they make. With software patents, though, I'm unaware of any case where someone has reconstructed an invention from the description in the patent.
Isn't it illegal to poison towns' water tables? That seems like a pretty severe flaw in your analogy, since presumably you don't think suing people for patent infringement and then offering to settle is or ought to be illegal.
There's also the fact that chemical companies provide clear social value: people buy what they make. With software patents, though, I'm unaware of any case where someone has reconstructed an invention from the description in the patent.