Unfortunately, patent offices think the courts will sort it out if they mess up, and courts think patent offices probably did an OK job vetting, and they both d

Unfortunately, patent offices think the courts will sort it out if they mess up, and courts think patent offices probably did an OK job vetting, and they both defer to each other more than they probably should. That said: there are only a handful of successful patent defense strategies, and some of them merely prevent bad things from happening to you (e.g. arguing noninfringement), others invalidate the patent (e.g. showing prior art). So, just because the process stumbles sometimes doesn't imply that patent can not encourage progress and it does not imply patents can't encourage progress in general. But it does lead to expensive lawsuits that even bona-fide in-the-right actors will settle to avoid. To take the counterpoint: we're not seriously suggesting GF is a patent troll right? (Though a recent court case argued "patent troll" can't be defamatory because no-one knows what it means and so it must be opinion ;-))