> it should be a requirement to produce a detailed description of the method by which the desired result is achieved In theory, that's how it is. In order to r

> it should be a requirement to produce a detailed description of the method by which the desired result is achieved In theory, that's how it is. In order to receive a patent, you must first "reduce it to practice". That doesn't mean you have to build it yourself, but it does mean that you have to describe it in sufficient enough detail that a person of "ordinary skill in the art" should be able to actually build it. In practice, that doesn't happen. Part of that is that a lot of really general patents got through in the 90s, as the article states. Another part is that patents are written in such thick legalese that you almost need formal education just to make sense of the language, and most people in software won't even bother.