I really can't see anything bad happening in a process that allows unchecked intrusion into one's IP grants by one's competitors. The problem isn't so much the

I really can't see anything bad happening in a process that allows unchecked intrusion into one's IP grants by one's competitors. The problem isn't so much the patent process, it's scope. Things that shouldn't be patentable are. You have the obvious, like software; but you also have the more challenging like a slight modification to the way a transistor is layed out (hypothetical example) leading to the one of tens of thousands of patents a smartphone needs. The first is hard to deal with. It's a blurry line between hardware and software, but I could see some rules that could help a lot: things like "it actually requires more than a general purpose computer", "the item is a standalone item and not a piece of a bigger thing", etc. I have no idea how to deal with the second. I think to solve that, you have to consider moving to a non-IP world (at least in some sectors). I'm not completely convinced dumping IP protection is the right thing to do, but I think it might be. Clothing is a good example of a sector that has little IP protection (except trade dress, which was a big part of this case [an overplayed one by Apple, IMO]). Like tech, it is highly iterative on the last wave, moves very quickly, and old waves lose value very quickly. It has managed pretty well, but cheap clones have certainly had their impact.