This posting is for those that say software innovation moves too fast to be protected by a slow moving patent system.  The demo in the hyperlink below was presented to about 1000 computer professionals in Silicon Valley in 1968.  Englehart has been a prolific inventor in computer sciences of everything from the mouse to GUI to word processing, and it’s all on this demo.  Nearly 50 years later the mouse-driven, word processing interface lives on.  Had Englehart filed a patent in 1968 it would have been nearly expired by the time the technology he invented made it to the commercial market.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/03/the-mother-of-all-demos-presented-by-douglas-engelbart-1968.html