"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
Patents are becoming a real problem in the technology field. So many
patents with very little merit are being allowed to pass.

For what it's worth, it's not just the technology field.

A recent example in the aviation industry is the ridiculous "spar doubler"
patent filed for and granted to Aerofab, the company that (at the time) made
Lake aircraft. That patent is under review currently, and one hopes the
patent office will see the error of their ways, but for now it's still in
force.

As near as I can tell, the patent office has decided that it is too much
trouble to do any work in evaluating a patent application for anything other
than having the right basic format. They appear to be figuring that if a
patent is invalid, someone will find out later in a lawsuit.

Of course, lawsuits are expensive, often much more expensive than just
rolling over on a threatened lawsuit and paying whatever extortion the
patent holder asks for. IMHO, the patent office is abdicating their
responsibility to the public, and in the process creating a significant
economic overhead on all variety of industries through their lackadaisical
approach to patent approvals.

My apologies if this post in any way brought the thread back to being
on-topic, or nearly so.

Pete

p.s. What's up with people still using the obsolete "rec.aviation"
newsgroup? Or the .misc, for that matter? Who reads .misc?