god i hate these big companies that go patent crazy.
essentially patents nowadays are just ways wealthy companies can sue other wealthy companies.
its not like any of these revolutionary ideas are the companies anyways....
they're the ideas of the employees which somehow become the companies whenever they mention it; and you can bet the employees that think of the cool new ideas, are usually not the ones that are making the huge $$$ of it.
furthermore, there's inevitable paths technology will take (for example: if person x didn't invent z, person y would eventually discover z.)
and patenting some of these paths will just limit growth as it only allows the first person who thought of the idea to profit.
now ideally the patent protects the inventor's idea; but when you factor in that it costs expensive and time consuming for the average individual ($2500+), then you'll quickly see that the people that can patent more things are the wealthy individuals and the wealthy companies.
so essentially patents are making the rich get richer.
what would be interesting to balance this would be perhaps limitations on how often an entity can apply for a patent, or some other solution.
anyways i don't know the legal side of patents; but its just annoying always hearing how company X sues company Y for hundreds of millions of dollars for patent violations.
