Is Patent System Corrupt?

If you've even casually read issued "process" patents issued over the last couple of decades, you might have the same reaction others do: these processes should not be patentable. Some of you will have been taught that the laudable purpose of a patent is to protect and reward intellectual property that takes a specific form and implementation. Patents, you were taught, cannot be issued for "ideas."

The problem is that the patent system appears to have gotten sloppy at best, corrupt at worst. "Corrupt" not in the sense of dishonest, but in the sense of "decayed and rotting."

Firms have their own financial interests to consider when making public pronouncements, and when Google chairman Eric Schmidt slammed regulators and patent trolls at Salesforce.com’s annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, there was a mix of serious Google vested interests and serious higher public policy purposes at play.

“All the patent fights that are interesting are done in one district in Texas, how this is possible is beyond me, it just doesn’t feel right” Schmidt said. “With the device revolution coming, I fear patents will slow it down.”

He said that most patents issued in the 1990s and 2000s were overly broad. Many would agree.

Google’s Eric Schmidt lays the smack down on patents