My grandfather was a mechanical engineer. He never said anything bad about patents, and even got one for himself. One is not automatically biased against pate

My grandfather was a mechanical engineer. He never said anything bad about patents, and even got one for himself. One is not automatically biased against patents in one's own field. Software engineers oppose software patents not because of bias, but because they're harmful. I don't know the value of patents in other fields. There may be areas where patents accomplish the purpose they were designed for.