PBS profiles Martin Goetz, recipient of the first software patent

PBS has been exploring a fair bit technology history with its digital shorts lately -- examining the likes of animated GIFs, indie games and coding as art in its Off Book series -- and it's now tackled one issue that's making more headlines than ever: software patents. It hasn't provided a distilled history of the topic this time, though, instead offering a brief profile of the man who received the first software patent in 1968, Martin Goetz, as part of its Inventors series. Not surprisingly, he still sees a place for software patents, but admits that the current situation is "a little bit of a mess." Head on past the break for the video.

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Source: PBS Inventors Series (YouTube)