is certainly an incredibly expensive problem, even in single cases; http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Boeing_Patent_Shuts_Down_AMC_14_Lunar_Flyby_Salvage_Att

is certainly an incredibly expensive problem, even in single cases; http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Boeing_Patent_Shuts_Down_AMC_14_Lunar_Flyby_Salvage_Attempt_999.html http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Boeing_Patent_Shuts_Down... And I am pretty sure, even ignoring broadness as a factor and just sticking to patents granted despite prior art, that if there were only a few dozen patents causing trouble then the companies like Article One, who is getting patents revoked in the hundreds due to discovery of prior art, would not be able to exist while paying out millions in discovery fees to their researchers. [edit] - a look at the problem of workload by a USPTO Patent Examiner; http://just-n-examiner.livejournal.com/44737.html http://just-n-examiner.livejournal.com/44737.html