Determining whether something is patentable or not is currently a process that quite often takes well more than a year. I think shorter terms are the way to go,

Determining whether something is patentable or not is currently a process that quite often takes well more than a year. I think shorter terms are the way to go, but they need to be fairly long to justify the cost and hassle of acquiring them. Something in the 5-10 year range is more plausible. Also, for an article presumably about patents, the author casually conflates copyright a bit too much for my tastes - which is a beast unto itself. Copyright's primary problems are: insufficiently protected fair use rights, abuse of 'works for hire' and obscene term lengths. But the citizen-facing problems outlined in the article are the result of monopolies that weren't government-granted (MPAA/RIAA) and the DMCA. (Specifically: causing the loss of fair use to make personal copies and publish for non-commercial educational purposes)