I've raised the example before that ideas aren't worthless, for example patents have value but was criticised because "patents are not ideas, they are execution".
Notch seems to think patents are ideas. I don't know enough about patents to really draw a conclusion as to if they are expressions of ideas or executions of ideas.
Also, the example of writing your own similar book is quite a clumsy one for patent infringement.
I felt like notch matured a while ago but this is a surprisingly childish rant from him, i honestly felt it was a bit below him. He has a point, a valid point, but he has not conveyed it very well, and has caused collatoral damage to other valid fields for patents in the process of criticizing software patents.
This one isn't very well thought out and is adding more confusion into the pot.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/software-literary-patents.en.h...
I think it works and the "clumsiness" comes from the reality of patents e.g. see the smartphone patent wars.