I’m in the middle of applying for a software patent. While researching other software patents – a task that is equal parts thrilling and thoroughly boring – I think it’s hard to avoid concluding that software patents are a bit of a mess: there are so many, and a good deal appear to be so obvious that you wonder why there were granted.

While digging around, I found two articles that shed some light on how we got here. First, Nilay Patel’s excellent article on patents from The Verge. Here he talks about the public exchange that forms the basis of patents and explores why software patents are particularly troublesome. In short: no one really knows what they’re doing here.

Second, Paul Graham has an essay on software patents and the role they play for software companies both large and small.