Let's stop for a moment boys and girls to fix one recurring theme in some of these blog posts and discussions: You are not supposed to be able to patent ideas.

Let's stop for a moment boys and girls to fix one recurring theme in some of these blog posts and discussions: You are not supposed to be able to patent ideas. There's a reduction to practice requirement. Sadly, I must say that there are tons of patents out there that are nothing more than ideas or concepts turned into patents. I've run into lots of them in the hundreds of patents I must have read over the years. They fact that they are or were mere ideas becomes a glaring reality when you look into actually implementing the patent and discover that nothing works as advertised. This is another sad failing of the USPTO: While the rules of the game say that ideas are not patentable, in reality, they are. So, yes, I contradict my first statement. I still prefer to speak with more precision when it comes to patents and not say things like "patent you idea" or "people like to file patents to protect their ideas". You are not supposed to be able to do that.