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Dutch Say No to Software Patent Directive
Rik writes "Thursday night the Dutch parliament has decided that the Dutch government should not vote for the EU Software Patent Directive at the European Council of Ministers next week. The decision of the Dutch parliament strengthens attempts of MEPs of the European Parliament to send the Software Directive back to the drawing board."
God bless them cheeseheads! Lets all wear wooden clogs and chant stranges incantaions in recognition of their greatness!
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
The problem isn't patents, the problem is the patent system. We need to invest more money in the patent system so that we can separate the "stupid" patents from the legitimate ones.
Now software patents, that is a whole 'nother ball game.
...and what incentive will you have, sir, to protect your hard-work from those who'd not hesitate to rip it off you?
As an American patriot I hate EU because it makes me hate my own corrupted government who only wants to do what's best for corporations, don't giving a damn about small business or open source. Damn you Europeans! You make me sick! Sick of jealousy!
here
Besides that, I wonder this means they (=Brinkhorst) is actually going to vote or will abstain which would basically mean yes.
- In Memoriam: Jeroen de Bruin (1972-2004), bye bro
I do not want to protect it. I want to share it so that mankind can benefit from my hard work.
And I will set up a donate with PayPal link for those who want to support me.
"...Now how do i glue the GPL onto a nuclear bomb..."
Copyright- which has protected programmers för over 50 years !
Just saying it like it are.
Donate free food here
I am glad that the patents are being moved away.
But my doubt is: what would happen IF Polish minister Marcinski had not vetoed the patent bill in December? Was it really so close? I mean - was the majority in the EU parlament for the software patents or against them in December 2004? Why only one veto?
best regards - michal
71 voted in favour, 69 against. Note that the Dutch parliament has 150 seats, so an extremely close call - could have gone the other way if some more people bothered to vote, it seems.
Voting was along party lines, but the Dutch parliament is like a zoo: in favour were PvdA (labour, largest leftish-center party), SP (socialist, populist, at heart even maoist...), GroenLinks (merger of communist, pacifist, green parties), D'66 (center party, slightly leftish, pro-education, pro-democratic reform), ChristenUnie (leftish christian party). Against were CDA (traditional biggest party, center, christian), VVD (what we call "liberal", i.e. pro-free market, pro-business, traditional values, typical rightish), SGP (right wing hardline christians).
Currently government is formed by CDA, VVD and D'66, who together have a slim majority. So this win is because D'66 defected, and SGP is slightly smaller. D'66 is much the smallest party in government, and this is certainly not what government wanted (remember they pushed hard to pass the directive in the last few meetings of the Dutch EU presidency end of last year). The minister pushing then was Brinkhorst (D'66!).
Anyway, this is the first time I see D'66 do something that makes me actually happy with the vote I gave them :-)
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Finally, the Dutch play a more positive role in this debacle. However, there is still the problem that decisions of the Dutch Parliament may be ignored by its governmental representatives in the EU (it happened before with the software patenting mess). Unfortunately, software patent news is small potatoes, so they won't lose a significant amount of votes by going against the wishes of the Parliament. And on the other side of the fence there are their buddies of Philips, who really would like to have software patents in Europe. And, they reason, what is good for Philips, is good for the Dutch economy. Personally, I think software patents are also bad for Philips, but IANAL.
"In contrast, in this case, the "political agreement" does not really exist. It is pure fiction. Once you call a vote, multiple Member States needed for a majority would vote against.
Therefore, in this case the whole point of avoiding the vote is not the legitimate reason of saving time, but the deeply disturbing wish to fabricate a majority where there is none."
Nail on head.
the convoluted European political system? Dutch Parliament, European Parliament, Council of Ministers, my head is spinning. It all sounds like some retro Soviet political wet dream.
Anyway, the Dutch Parliament, which I assume speaks for the Dutch people, decided against software patents. OK, so why should they end up with software patents after all is said and done if the Dutch Parliament voted against them? Do the individual governments of the member states not retain their sovereignty in the EU? I realize that for the EU to function as, well, the European Union, it has to have some political will. How far does this politcal will extend?
Just asking.
I'll say it again.
Don't want to see software patents in EU? Want to do something about it?
Donate money to FFII today:
http://ffii.org/money/account/index.en.html
Interesting proposition.
The patent system was originally instated to grant an inventor a temporary and artificial monopoly on a new invention. The first patents are found in the 15th century in the republic of Venice.
Patent abuse is nothing new. Prior to the enactement of the Statute of Monopolies in 1623, the crown would issue letters patent providing any person with a "monopoly" to produce particular goods or provide particular services. This was abused by the crown, leading to the legislation setting a term limit for the monopolies granted by a patent.
Most people seem to agree that granting an inventor a patent for novel idea or implementation fosters innovation. Let's say I invent a non-obvious and novel idea for building a smaller, lighter and more secure watertight latch for use in large cargo ships. Using this door would save shipbuilders lots of money in materials and labours. If there are no patents to protect me, any other company or individual could reverse engineer my design and sell a knock-off. Since they have little R&D costs to recuperate, they can sell it a cheaper price than me, thus preventing me from recuperating my R&D costs.
The patent system works by granting me a temporary monopoly on my design. I can choose to license it to other manufacturers, so that if they choosem to enter the market, I can still recoup my development costs.
The problem with the patent system today is that the patents are often not in the hands of those that produce and implement the patents in question. Instead, they are concentrated into holding companies that use them to cash in on patent infringments. Often these patents are neither novel nor non-obvious, so many have no idea they are infringing on a patent before they are slapped with a lawsuit.
If this model of business was to be made unprofitable, many of the problem with the patent system would vanish.
Cheeseheads? You are lagging behind. For quite some time now, we are widthly known to be potheads.
All kidding aside, this is, imho, the first good decision our parliament has made in quite some time. Good to see there are still some remains of our once so liberal nation.
By the way, why would you chant strange incantaions in recognition of our greatness? Am I missing some reference to my own folklore here?
I'm trying to improve my English. Please correct me on any spelling/grammar errors in this post.
They can't, the Dutch government isn't bound by motions from the Dutch parliament.
Donate free food here
State secretary Karien van Gennip (Economic Affairs) urged not to accept the motion against software patents by using the following argument: Luxemburgh, EU chair, responsible for putting software patents on the agenda, should not be discredited or restrained. That's one hell of an argument! Oooo! Let's not upset the Luxemburgians!
The result of the decision by the dutch goverment is that the Central European Commission cannot continue with it's intention to put the proposal on the agenda for approval. Instead the European parlement has the initiative again: they can rethink the whole plan. The major problem with the current proposal is that it allows for strong ownership/copyright of software-solutions, making it difficult for other parties to expand and further improve on current software, since lot of features may be protected. While i generally support protection of idea's and developments, i consider the software world still a developing one. Strong protection of idea's might easily lead to a halt in new software developments, a concentration of innovative power in that hands of those who already have the power to begin with. Software isn't just good enough right now and the 'powers that are' haven't proven they can innovate the way that is beneficial to us users. And stricter laws won't change that as well. Patenting is intended to reward those that invest in developing new idea's. I think there are still many many commonly shared idea's on how to improve software. For the moment, to develop those idea's, all that is needed is time, time to develop. So companies have a way of protecting their investment: they invest the time, and get a lead on their rivals that didnt invest the time in that particular advancement. When the time comes when significant advancements in software are the result of intense high cost investments and true developement of new idea's and insights, then more strict protecting laws should be applied.
Patent's don't protect your work, copyrights do that.
Patents are a licence to rip off other people's work, granted by the state as an incentive for you to publish your work. There were perfectly good reasons for this at the time the system developed, but few if any of the reasons still exist.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Questions:
1. Do you have to worry about breaking the law by writing your own software? No.
2. Do you have to worry about breaking the law by smoking a joint? No.
3. Do you have to worry about breaking the law by sleeping with a girl below 18? No.
Conclusions:
1. Move to Netherlands.
2. Have a peace of mind.
3. Profit.
Perhaps it was incidents like this that persuaded the Dutch parliament to make this decision.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Actually, patents are a temporary monopoly on a design. How you choose to use that monopoly is up to you - you can choose to license it to others, or you can choose to be the sole supplier of your design.
In some countries, there laws that force the licensing of patents if there is no implementation available within a reasonable time-frame.
Actually, there are more problems with these. While you do point out acurately, that holding companies are abusing these, there is another more common abuse.
A person will obtain a patent and then start a small company(1-5 ppl). However, a large company who watches it sees the potential and simply decides to do the same, but without paying for the patent. The small guy can not afford to take on a big company.
Now, one of the better examples to most here is MS vs. all the small companies that they do this to. What they are counting on, is stalling it in the courts and then paying just a fraction of what it has earned them. In the mean time, they have wiped out the company or buy them at a fraction of what they would have at the height of the company.
But they are no worse (and in fact, better) than many other medium to small. My father has a patent for a archery product. When a larger company decided that they liked it, they started manufactuering their own. When he spoke up and threatened lawsuit, the larger company simply went to all the stores where it was sold at, and stopped them from distributing his product. Since they were not a convicted monopoly, they are not watched by the feds. But they damage is there. And this goes on all the time
Basically, the patent does not protect the little guys. The high costs of the legal system prevents any real action. But it does allow a large company to harass the little guy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Well fine, get rid of patents for software...
But to remove the patent system entirely? Many patents in the world outside of software are held by companies that spent millions developing them. You think a paypal donate link is going to benifit them when once their piece of hardware (or whatever) is out in the world and some 3rd world company reverse engineers it and takes all their profits?
Remove the ability to protect your research and the guy who can sell the product for the least amount of money gets the money. A company spends huge amounts in R&D cannot compete with a company that only steals ideas since the company that steals ideas has far less costs.
East Coast Brewers
They are rather wider than that. They are monopolies on an idea. It's not just the specific design of the Amazon one-click buying system which was claimed.
Whichis where the ability to rip of other people's work comes from. If I have a patent and you, in ignorance, produce a better implementation than mine of that idea, I can assume control of your work.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
We need to invest more money in the patent system so that we can separate the "stupid" patents from the legitimate ones.
We don't necesseraly have to invest more money. Plain simple rules are cheaper and easier for everyone and make patents more valuable because a lot of todays uncertainty is removed. Business methods should be totally banned and every patent claim that can be implemented on a universal computing machine (software on computers). The rules have to be easy to understand and easy to follow. You will always have a gray zone of uncertainty but you can keep it as small as possible.
Here is an idea for patent reform. The person/organization that applies for a patent has to also submit evidence of the amount of resources (time and money) spent on the invention. In return, patent law, will grant them patent protection for upto 20 times the investment. Either they earn 20 times the money spent or they have protection of 20 times the number of hours spent . The number "20" is just something off the top of my head for now. Thus Jeff Bezos, after proving that it really took him all of 1 week only focussing on coming up with the 1-click process will have patent protection for 20 weeks, while a big drug company spending $1 billion on a new drug will have patent protection till it earns $20 billion on the same. If the drug company spent 4 years on developing the drug, they may also get protection for 80 years in case the $20 billion in royalties is not reached before that. In a fast changing world, 20 years of blanket patent protection for every small idea is simply too much.
How much money should we as a society spend on getting de patent system to work? perhaps there are better ways to spend taxpayer's money to encourage inovation. (grants, sponsoring)
Patents are a means to an end, not en end in itself.
Dear Sir,
I am a programmer and a researcher in computer science, thus one of those supposed to benefit from a software patent system. And frankly, both from what I have experienced personnaly and from what I see in the press, I dont feel protected *at all* by software patents.
Software patents are so silly that any dispute related to them can not be based on rational argument and any form of justice that should derive from it. Those disputs are pure lawyer technical fights. They require money and are possible only between big entities (read corporations).
So, Sir, software patents are not an incentive at all. They are a way to lock the market to keep small structures and individuals out. Anybody saying the opposite is a liar or an idiot.
--
Go Debian!
The problem isn't solely that inventors themselves aren't the ones receiving the patents;
The problem is also that the number of "inventors" in the realm of computer programming is very very big.
On the left hand: How many people are there that can tinker at home, and make special types of macrophages, or whatever it is that biologists do in research time?
On the right hand: How many people are there who can apply XOR to draw cursors on their home computers? I was doing that when I was 12, and I don't consider myself particularly bright.
The definition of "obvious" or "non-obvious" is not clear. I can easily imagine the baffled patent examiner, considering the XOR drawing algorithm. "Wow! This guy knows about bits, and logic gates, and,... other complicated stuff. Hot damn, that can't be obvious. We gotta do something about this... We gotta... Make sure nobody else does this for 20 years!"
20 years!
Even if the programmers are the ones receiving the checks for their "invention," we still have the same problem:
Specifically, the patent system is prohibiting innovation rather than encouraging it.
That is one thing, but I also think there is something else more specific to software, and it's not a theoretical but a practical difference.
By far most software in use today is custom-made. People create websites, design databases, and implement business rules. Just check the size of the IT consulting business. The stuff that you see on the shelf is just the tip of the iceberg.
So, the incentive for innovation is not money, it's the simple fact that you're working on a project and your customer has requested feature X. So you figure out a way to implement it. Your development costs are paid directly by your customer, and even if you did not have patent protection and everyone else implemented the same feature in the software they're writing for their customers, you'd still get paid.
Hence, innovation would still occur if software patents did not exist. Software is a service, as they say, and if you work is protected by copyright, others must do the same work (implementing feature X) again.
The big problem with software patents as they exist in the USA today, is that it is these features (one-click shopping for example) that are patented. That just doesn't make sense. It essentially gives the patent holder the right to tax anyone who implements that particular feature, in exchange for what? Thinking up new features? I don't think we need incentives for that.
"bedoeld" :P
The EPO makes a billion Euros a year for itself (never mind what the patent lawyers make). This might be due to volume rather than quality, of course, but I understand this is sufficient income for a well run PO.
Did he inhale?
something I picked up in a Dutch pub after a footbaal game"
la luhl ala luh lhuluh la la laaaa!!
You're correct there. That's the first line of our national anthem.
Of course... wait 'till some $CORP sues you into the ground for that interoperating piece of software you small company wrote to satisfy a customer's spec on a non $CORP owned integrated platform. But the customer can't afford the licensing and wouldn't care less if the IT equipment you try to sell is just a [clickety] scripting customization of some cumbersome, forced upgrade, platform software. The customer probably wants something that just works, that they can forget running on some blade for as long as they please without having to upgrade because the $CORP decided to drop support for it, that they can tinker and refactor for as long as they please and not necessarily by you.
But they can't buy it, and you can't make and sell it because everything from help files to the idea of stored procedures is patented up and nobody wants to contend that in court against a Megabuck $CORP. So you're role is dumbed down to that of VAR, certified [clickety] wizard guy and the customers see their IT costs SOAR because every 3yrs they have to upgrade even if what they've already got is fine: 1. the "platform software", 2. "the Operating system to support 1, 3. new hardware to have 2 run at a decent speed, 4. the custom app because it's not working anymore.
That's not funny... innovation grinds to a halt and a medieval inter-feud toll system bleeds the industry dry while the Seigneurs and their lawyers (who BTW know jack shit about computers) have a collective roaring laugh.
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Translation of the relevant part:
I think that's pretty clear.Donate free food here
Simply reducing the amount of time a patent is valid from 20 years, to about 5 years, and making them non-transferrable (ie. Company A cannot purchase patents from Company B, or acquire them by purchasing Company B) might go a long way to cleaning up the system.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
What about those patents that require little if any work (such as 'ISNOT' or 'a method for paying freelance programmers')? Why do you patent fanboys always assume that patents are there to protect hard work?
The patent system might not be under such fire if patents had a proportionality to the amount of creative effort (original, not patent lawyer-ese) required to produce the patent. Developers often have seven reasonable (but not necessarily original) ideas before breakfast which patent offices seem only too willing to grant (provided all the fees are paid and the company is big enough...).
Did he inhale?
The EPO is a paper-pushing business- practically a private firm. The last thing they need is more money. Sadly there is alot of under-the-table talk between Parliament members and various corporate (largely US) monopolies. The EU would be much safer with a less 'buyable' source of regulatory control, ideally in the form of a panel of publically nominated experts. This would at least protect the ecology of software development in the EU from rash, uneducated and catastrophic decisions.
Software patents themselves make little or no sense as an IP protection mechanism, especially considering the vast capital required to register and 'protect' a patent. Many good ideas come from small places, however swpatents discourage innovation through fear of the possiblity of legal consequences for small to medium size developers. For this reason the GPL does more to protect the interests of the developer, and the quality of software in general. If you have a good idea and you want to protect it, tell someone.. and if someone else implements 'your idea' in a better way or before you.. then clearly you just weren't interested in it enough
But to remove the patent system entirely?
Why not, if it's broken? Replace it with something else perhaps? An Australian govt. research project came to the conclusion that not having patents would be useful to innovation and the only reason they kept it was because of international treaty.
Or how about the Journal of Economic Growth, 2004, vol. 9, issue 1, pages 81-123:
"Furthermore, patents affect the allocation of R&D resources across industries, and patents can distort resources away from industries where they are most productive."
I think the debate should be started to see whether patents are a useful mechanism or not.
Did he inhale?
The article is misleading, the Dutch won't be voting against the patent directive, because there will be no voting.
Basically, the whole patent directive is one big swindle:
The only thing that Dutch government can do is to strike this A-item again from the order of council. What's gonna happen when Council decides to ignore JURI recomendation for returning this directive to first reading? Honestly, I don't know...
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
Most people seem to agree that granting an inventor a patent for novel idea or implementation fosters innovation.
Can you give us a link which backs up this assertion? (Preferably with good quality facts).
All I have ever seen is this mantra repeated ad nauseam whilst I have read many articles which, with economic data, show that patents stifle innovation and distort the market.
Did he inhale?
a company that can afford to pout millions into R&D can afford to market the product they get at the end of the day.
The patent system was designed to allow for those 'Joe Averages' who tinker in their sheds for instance, to come up with an idea and make money from it without having to worry about a large corporation stealing it and then cornering the market , giving poor Joe Average nowhere to go.
with software theres no reason for not using copyright to protect it
Actually, the EU employs fewer bureaucrats than an average UK Local Authority.
Xenu loves you!
They do not work for:
- Software: I assume reading this knows that
- Business methods: as with software, inovations has not speeded up after they became patentable, therefore patents do not work
- Pharmaceuticals: only a fractionabout 15%-20% of the extra cost paid by consumers goes back into R & D - i.e. it works but is a very inefficient incentive system.
- Semiconductors: the main motive for R & D is to keep manufacturing capcblities up to advancing stadards - trade secrets would be enough protection. This was confired by a study by Besen and Maskin at MIT. In addition all the big boys cross license to each other anyway so the main effect is to keep new entrants out.
Th patent system works so well that huge government intervention and expenditure is needed to keep R & D spend going. The best examples are again with pharmaceuticals. In the US the FDA gives pharma companies extra incetives like those of orphan drugs, in the UK they get tax breaks. Globally a huge amount of R & D is carried out or funded by univerisites and by non-profit organisations such as the Wellcome Trust.So why not restrict patents to purely mechancial investions: what they were meant to apply to originally?
I'm trying to improve my English. Please correct me on any spelling/grammar errors in this post.
Umm... easy on the pot dude. It's playing hell with your spelling.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
I'm afraid you lost that bet. Maybe slashdotters are less short-sighted than you think.
GPL is not perfect and it is capable of preventing research, development, and progress in some fields.True, but I don't think there is any license that is "perfect" from everyone's point of view.
Communism does not *always* work.No, but neither does corperatism. I think linux is a pretty good example of a situation where it *does* work. If that makes me a "GPL zealot", so be it. I for one, hope that someday we'll live in a socialistic world (a la Startrek) where money is no longer the most important factor in life.
I'm trying to improve my English. Please correct me on any spelling/grammar errors in this post.
I picked something up at a dutch pub too. Can't for the life of me get rid of the itching down there though.
That metric doesn't make sense to me. Do you think a very small pharmaceutical industry that only works on a few "easy" diseases, but puts 50% back into R&D is clearly better? I think a better metric is the total R&D spending with patents vs. without. Of course any estimate of this now is just a guess because we do have patents, but I really can't see how anyone would invest without some kind of exclusivity period. By far and away the major expense of finding a drug is figuring out which one works and proving it. Who would ever invest the money to do this if the results became available for all to use?
Th patent system works so well that huge government intervention and expenditure is needed to keep R & D spend going. The best examples are again with pharmaceuticals. In the US the FDA gives pharma companies extra incetives like those of orphan drugs, in the UK they get tax breaks.
Those subsidies are due to the realization that drugs are very expensive to bring to market, so expensive that there are diseases which affect too few people to ever make finding a treatment economically viable. I can't see how eliminating patents would do anything except increase the number of diseases that are "orphaned".
Globally a huge amount of R & D is carried out or funded by univerisites and Wellcome Trust
Actually this work is fairly orthogonal to what the drug companies do, with the universities tending much more toward the R and the companies much more toward the D. Although it is beginning to change somewhat, there has been quite a reluctance in the academic community to acknowledge importance of D like activities. If you don't believe me, submit a grant that proposes medium scale synthesis, pharmacology, toxicology, or other vital components of develoment and see how the study sections trash it.
You are basicly arguing that abolishing the patent system won't work because some people have based their business model on it.....
Your wife may be out of a job and so might be some patent-office clerks and a lot of law firms, but would the world as a whole be worse?
A hundred years ago you would have argued that cars are bad because people make a living based on horses. (food on the table, solves real problems, yadda yadda)
Take a look at another thing hapening about a hundred years ago: flying.
The wright brothers may be credited with the first powered flight, but the idea was hardly original. (In fact it was attempted all around the world and the mere fact that they were first is heavily disputed) The patented parts of their 'invention' (most notably their control system).
A hundred years later flying has evolved in an amazing rate. This wasn't because of the patent, this was because all those other pioneers simply ignored those patents and continued experimenting.
It led to a lot of nasty lawsuits and mud throwing but we came out differently.
Imagine what would have happened if the wright brothers really had the power to stop all kinds of flight for a few decades. If they had been able to enforce their patents effectivly they would have had that power. You are giving an awfull lot of power to people who mostly don't deserve it at all. The biggest problem with patents is that it gives far to much credit to people simply doing their job.
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
The EU patent system is governed by a multilateral treaty called the European Patent Convention (EPC). Both EU and non-EU countries have signed and ratified EPC.
In 1973 when EPC was signed, all the countries harmonized their patent laws to conform to the text of EPC. At the same time the European Patent Office (EPO) was created as the administrative body to issue patents in Europe.
The big problem with EPO is that they are outside any political or judicial influence and can do pretty much what they want to.
EPC Article 52.2 clearly states that software "as such" is not patentable.
But over the years EPO has changed their "interpretation" of this. First to say that software is not software "as such" if loaded in a computer and having some useful effect (what they call "further technical effect"). Later to say that even software residing on a media without being loaded into a computer may not be considered software "as such". Their arguments for these "interpretations" are really convoluted, and it takes weeks of study to understand them.
This means that EPO illegally has issued a large number of software patents. Most estimates say at least 30,000. Fortunately these software patents cannot currently be enforced in court because they are illegal.
To fix the problem that the software patents cannot be enforced in court they have twice called for a diplomatic conference with the goal of changing EPC to legalize software patents. On both diplomatic conferences the request of EPO was denied.
Only after the second failed attempt by EPO to have EPC changed did EU propose a directive attempting to legalize software patents.
With a directive the EU can force the EU countries to change their national law. If that happens the illegally issued software patents can be legally enforced in court.
Some MEPs are really angry about the Commission's actions. MEP Michel Rocard (France/"Socialists") pronounced a speech before the JURI (juridical affairs) committee of the European Parliament, in which he accuses the commissionner who pushed the project of sneaky actions. I think that Rocard and others are decided to shoot down the proposal by whatever means.
A few problems with your proposals:
1. Five years may not be long enough to design, implement and sell the idea. By the time it's on the shelf the patent could have expired, meaning all the research and development is for nothing.
2. Your non-transfer proposal means that small-time inventors who lack the means to actually implement their idea can't cash in and let a big manufacturing company make it instead. This takes away freedom from the inventor.
I don't think the problem with the patent system is that the inventors have too many rights and priveledges, the problem is that patents are being awarded to NON-INVENTORS, i.e. people who didn't actually invent anything, or slightly modified someone else's idea, or who patented something obvious. That's what needs fixing, not punishing people who actually DO invent things.