It had to happen: the US Patents and Trademarks Office has published the first patent application to cover a fictional storyline, echoing the example in an article Richard Stallman wrote for the Guardian earlier this year.
The question now is, how long before major entertainmant companies start patenting thousands of random story ideas, with no requirement to actually use any of these ideas themselves, with the intention of silencing authors that do not happen to work for them?
As with software, authors of fiction already have their "rights protected" by the copyright system. Allowing the same works to be patented adds no further incentive for people to create new works, while introducing significant barriers which will prevent those of us who don't have our own department of legal staff from creating.
