The judge who recently dismissed an Apple patent infringement case against Motorola, Richard Posner, has questioned the need for software patents in a new interview with Reuters. He argues that the smartphone industry is suffering from a "proliferation of patents," and that software patents may not be necessary, since writing a program requires much less investment than what a pharmaceutical company, for instance, might put into developing a new drug. "It's not clear that we really need patents in most industries," he says.
