The world that you were describing, without patent protection, would be perfectly fine for software.
Do you think samsung needed to refer to apple's patent to figure out those tricks? Or that those tricks needed significant R&D to come up with, which requires patent protection? I do not.
Do you think samsung needed to refer to apple's patent to figure out those tricks? Or that those tricks needed significant R&D to come up with, which requires patent protection? I do not.