This seemed like a far-fetched dystopia when I first read it. Now, Kindle et al. are not far away from this.
I also remember reading some piece from Stallman on software patents, from the eighties or early nineties. Well before software patent trolls, etc.
And then the scenario stated becoming, if not true, the a helluva lot closer. And the irony of Orwell books being removed remotely from Kindle's in 2009 [0] was evident and tied into the dystopia feel of it all.
[0] http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18...
Yeah, it wasn't a software patent, but. It's not hard to see something that's happened before and "predict" it could happen again.