Slashdot Last NTP Patent Tentatively Thrown Out

Ahhh, E-Commerce patents - the great debate. As a patent holder, I believe that they are, in principle, valid. There are some bad patents undoubtedly - the OpenMarket shopping cart patent perhaps. But there are some good ones.

My perspective - this is like what happened after the commercial viability of electricity became mainstream. Suddenly people were "electrifying" everything that had been manual before. Water pumps - add an electric motor. Toast-makers? Make 'em electric. Cars? Make them electric (and kind of slow, with a short battery life and no trunk space).

Water pumps were certainly not novel, but isn't the whole idea of patent law to incent the inventor to improve upon the original? E-Commerce certainly has its advantages over its analog predecessors, and even Luddites out there (who can't possibly be reading this) would agree that SOME people find the Internet useful for commerce purposes. Does it not make sense that patents will be written to cover inventions in this arena?