"This first comprehensive history of software patenting explores how patent law made software development the powerful industry that it is today. Historian Gerardo Con Da̕z reveals how patent law has transformed the ways computing firms make, own, and profit from software. He shows that securing patent protection for computer programs has been a central concern among computer developers since the 1950s and traces how patents and copyrights became inseparable from software development in the Internet age"-- Provided by publisher