To verify the harm copyright has done to the software field by restricting these conduits of information, what we need is a comparative review of the processes of innovation in the software field with other high technology fields not protected by copyright. In the absence of such a study, anecdotal evidence must suffice. Commentary from the legal community on intellectual property laws as applied to computer software includes some interesting perspectives on the lack of invention in the software field. Invention in the formal sense of the term is rare. To a patent attorney, this is an oxymoron.
Innovation is invention.
Practically all inventions in all fields are incremental. Inventions are patentable only if they have not been made before by another. Yet another commentator has argued that constant reinvention in the software field suggests that patents are not needed. After all, if these innovations can be so readily remade, there is no reason to encourage dissemination of them, or so the argument goes. This, of course, is nonsense.