One of my favorite podcasts, This American Life, has two excellent episodes concerning patents: Part 1: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/

One of my favorite podcasts, This American Life, has two excellent episodes concerning patents: Part 1: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/w... Part 2: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/496/when-patents-attack-part-two http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/496/w... I agree that hardware patents seem reasonable, as long as they are technical patents and not design patents, but shortening their length to 5 years sounds like a good idea. As a programmer, I cannot think of one software patent that I've seen granted which did not appear obvious. I'm sure they are out there, and there are many innovations taking place in computer science, but the kind of programming involved in developing most software-based startups does not warrant protection. Facebook didn't catch on due to amazing technology, it was amazing implementation. Likewise with Airbnb.