> For example, Pixar holds a patent on Monte Carlo sampling, and has sued or threatened a number of companies that used any sort of randomization in their rendering algorithms.

Actually, Pixar has a patent on certain uses of randomization in rendering. In patent-speak, randomization is the mechanism and rendering is the result.

I mention patent-speak because patents are the use of mechanism to accomplish result.

Would you object to a patent on certain uses of a lever to close a gate? (Ignoring novelty issues - closing gates with levers is well known now, while using randomization in rendering was presumably new when Pixar did their thing.) In patent-speak, the lever is the mechanism while closing the gate is the result.

If not, then you're arguing that a lever as a mechanism is somehow different from randomization as a mechanism. If so, you're pretty much arguing against all patents (using mechanism to accomplish result).