Nobody reads patents as a "catalogue of tools and building blocks they can use". Nobody reads patents even to learn. The only time anyone reads patents--at lea

Nobody reads patents as a "catalogue of tools and building blocks they can use". Nobody reads patents even to learn. The only time anyone reads patents--at least computing patents--is if you're preparing a new patent and need citations, or you plan to sue someone, or if someone was suing you over a patent. Current computing patents are written in such obtuse legal language and with such generalities to make the claims as broad as possible, that they are impossible to understand unless you already understand the invention. Also, they tend to be incredibly long. As someone who's had the displeasure of writing a couple patents and reading many more, I can't imagine a worse way to learn about a subject than reading patents. I'd rather read academic papers, study the object directly (take it apart, read the source code), talk to experts, or attend conferences. EDIT: I'm not talking about nice mechanical patents from 200 years ago like the cotton gin. I'm talking about computing patents today.