All of that being just, fair and useful is predicated on a reasonable definition of patents. If there was a reasonable definition of patents then suing for inf

All of that being just, fair and useful is predicated on a reasonable definition of patents. If there was a reasonable definition of patents then suing for infringement would be rare in comparison to companies legally acquiring licenses to patented technology. Instead its easy to patent something and then wait for someone to independently come up with a similar enough technology and sue them. This would be very difficult with an appropriate definition of patents, because independent invention would be unlikely. Now in the case that another company independently comes up with infringing technology, you can happily wait for them to assume all the business and manufacturing risk and then hold the patent over their heads for unbelievable sums of money. In this extortion model of pricing for patents the more obvious and less specific a patent is the higher its value. In contrast specific and innovative patents are much less likely to trip other companies up, so they have to be priced according to their value to actually make things before all the manufacturing and other business risks have been factored in. Actual patents as means of transferring and trading in invention seems to be completely dwarfed by the ability of patents to be used to extort money from successful businesses.