It annoys me that the tech community always focuses on software patents, as if hardware ones are automatically more legitimate. The original purpose of the pat

It annoys me that the tech community always focuses on software patents, as if hardware ones are automatically more legitimate. The original purpose of the patent system was to improve consumers lives by: a) Incentivizing innovations that would not otherwise be profitable. b) Incentivizing disclosure of invention details that would otherwise be kept secret. These are a pretty rare combination of circumstances for most inventions, whether software or hardware. a) is demonstrably rare since patents are constantly infringed, yet Apple (for example) still somehow manages to get by. b) does not apply to any technology that is distributed, since anyone can take it apart and see how it works. On the other side, patents of any type actively harm consumers: a) Products from large companies are driven up in cost due to litigation. b) Potential innovation from small companies is stifled by fear of litigation. I'm sure there's some use for a patent system, but it is very small. The US would be a far better place with no patent system than with the one we have now.