Organic chemistry is very interesting and one of the more patentable stuff because the result and technological processes are not trivially reproducible. The p

Organic chemistry is very interesting and one of the more patentable stuff because the result and technological processes are not trivially reproducible. The patent has always been a trade off of disclosure vs exclusivity. You make something innovative tell the public how you do it, you can monetize it for a couple of years - that is your reward for disclosing how stuff works. But if I can see in a glance what the improvement is and can reproduce it without the need of your disclosure, than it should not be patentable. Right now we are given the right to patent the outcome, not the road to get there. Of course with your previous background you could crush me with legal information why the law is the way it is and how everything is legal. And I would not even bother to double check you - you will be right. But for me the system is broken horribly now. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries We have lost the limited times clause. Copyright is virtually infinite right now. Nothing written by the time we were kids will enter public domain before the time we die. And with clever patent extensions for drugs ... this is going in a bad direction. I am not constitutional scholar, but for me this clause strongly implies that patent and copyright are for the progress of society and not the authors. So if we are in point where they stifle innovation and progress - the system must be reformed.