They also say traditional industries, such as music, would be better off making the Internet their partner rather than their enemy. Some entrepreneurs already are showing the way. Industries have adapted before. Robert Merges, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, points out that within a few decades the music industry went from trying to stop the radio industry from stealing its music to bribing deejays for airplay. The key is not to shut down the experimentation,'' Merges says.
Advocates argue the government needs to slow down.
Critics also point to business-process patents as one area in need of reform. And the number of business methods patented could easily quadruple if the patent office doesn't crack down. The problem, critics say, is that many of these patents represent simply a set of software-coded instructions to automate business processes already common in the physical world. That may not be novel, as the patent law requires. There are examples to follow.