The light bulb, the telephone, the electrical power system, and the television -- to name a few examples off the top of my head -- were all fraught with lawsuit

The light bulb, the telephone, the electrical power system, and the television -- to name a few examples off the top of my head -- were all fraught with lawsuits, and the "winners" were not necessarily the people you'd think were morally in the right. If I recall with the telephone it was literally a matter of who got to the filing desk first. The difference today is that the products in the center of the fights are all composed of a set of technologies each of which represents a bunch of inter-related fights. I guess the patent system is good at turning innovation into a lottery where if you invent something crucial then you get a _shot_ at fame and fortune. And psychology teaches us that random reinforcement works better than simply being "fair", so as an incentive system the patent system seems to work. As a dispenser of natural justice -- not so much.