The bargain with a patent is supposed to be that a) you get to build/use/sell an invention exclusively for a certain length of time, in exchange for b) publici

The bargain with a patent is supposed to be that a) you get to build/use/sell an invention exclusively for a certain length of time, in exchange for b) publicizing how you did it. A good number of software patents fail the second part of that test, to say nothing of originality etc., because they only declare the behavior and don't provide a reusable implementation - a lot of the time because they're derived from "wouldn't it be cool if..." spitballing sessions (especially in large companies).