It is, however, possible to go one step further. In Figure 4 we sketch a Patent-based Software Life Cycle in which yet another sub-phase has been added that performs patent applications whenever possible. We conjecture that this strategy is only available to the software development organizations with the deepest pockets. For each phase now further questions apply, such as
In many large software development organizations there exist ``Chinese walls'' between software developers and patent attorneys. This is not only the case for large commercial organizations but also for large open source projects like the Apache Foundation. The rationale being that the less software developers know about patents the stronger the position of the organization is in legal disputes. Implementation of the Patent-based Software Life Cycle may require similar measures. Of course, such measures completely defeat one of the primary goals of the patent system, i.e., knowledge dissemination.