Patents ostensibly offer a tradeoff - you have the right to a temporary monopoly on your invention, on the condition that you publish an explanation of your inv

Patents ostensibly offer a tradeoff - you have the right to a temporary monopoly on your invention, on the condition that you publish an explanation of your invention sufficient for a third-party to re-create it. It is not a unilateral gift to inventors, but a quid-pro-quo to encourage the public dissemination of new technologies. Modern patent practices have diminished the latter part of that tradeoff; many contemporary patents protect only one small part of an invention, or are sufficiently obscure and complex to provide little value to a third party. The rate of technological change has greatly accelerated, which has drastically changed the value of a twenty-year monopoly; many computer-related patents become obsolete long before the patent expires. I think there is a serious need to review the basic mechanisms of the patent system, because it has gradually transmuted into something fundamentally different. In a great many cases, patents inhibit rather than encourage innovation.