Of all the possible alternative measurement or incentive systems for scientific progress, I can hardly think of a more meaningless and damaging one than patents

Of all the possible alternative measurement or incentive systems for scientific progress, I can hardly think of a more meaningless and damaging one than patents. There's a huge problem of companies submitting vague, overbroad, or superfluous patents. And plus it does nothing to address the major problem indicated in the original article: we don't incentive people to produce important research.