I think we really need to consider what patents are for - because "somebody worked a year on" is waaaay to broad. This is about helping society right? Working a

I think we really need to consider what patents are for - because "somebody worked a year on" is waaaay to broad. This is about helping society right? Working a year isn't a big investment for a company - so if it's such a great invention they'd easily be able to recoupe their costs. This goes the other way too - Edison's Lab developed the first phonograph supposedly in months - yet that's far more on the "deserving" side of patents. Time isn't the best measure, but we have to consider what an actual good one would be. Giving at patents with relatively little oversight leads to a ton of prevented inventions, but how could we possibly inspect patents to a degree that we'd be able to. I haven't seen a plausible explanation that this search problem is even tractable.