Comment by kbenson

To take this to the obvious parallel of software patents, patents get a lot of (deserved) criticism these days, but they exist for a reason, ans serve a purpose which I think is arguably still valid. Excessive patent length and patenting trivial things is bad. So is people stealing the hard work of others. There is a sane middle ground we should be shooting for, not wiping patents out entirely to the detriment of most (arguably all, in the long run).