though I don't have any patents personally (companies I've worked for do) I'm not a fan of patents either. I always find this site questioncopyright.org (http://questioncopyright.org/promise) to be uplifting when I think about out the US patent and copyright system.
There is another website with a Kato-centric viewpoint that talks about recent copyright issues. This article is specific to whether you 'rent' or 'own' software. He specifically talks about how renting software is actually better, and is a very interesting viewpoint.
http://techliberation.com/2010/09/20/the-end-of-software-own...
Thanks for the compliment on the letter too.
For the web (and really and computer software) I am in the more liberal camp of http://unlicense.org/ (no affiliation to them) I think opening up everything to the public domain will speed innovation, among other things.