The problem is twofold: Firstly, when bad/stupid patents far outweigh the good, then the net negative effect renders any positive effect meaningless.
Secondly, the complexity of modern engineering means any individual invention is worthless by itself. If a lone inventor has an idea for a cool smartphone feature, they cannot practically bring it to market, because building a smartphone is too difficult and capital intensive, and requires licensing myriad other patents, mostly owned by incumbent vendors with no interest in allowing another competitor emerge.
This means that, even if every patent in an area is "good", a patent thicket[1] will nonetheless emerge in a field following a major breakthrough, as core and ancillary techniques are patented. A handful of large, dominant vendors come to monopolise the market, new players are locked out, and progress slows to molasses for the following twenty years. Only when these core patents begin to expire can progress start again, until some new major breakthrough is made, and the entire process repeats itself.
Through this lens, the rise of patent trolls makes sense. Faced with impenetrable, monopolised markets, individuals and smaller players are incentivized to engage in parasitic behaviour, gaming the patent system to extract what value they can, since actually using their patents to compete is either impossible or impractical.
Agreed with all the above. I am honestly curious - is there evidence that we're at the point where patents are a net negative? I hear a lot of strong opinions, but I am ignorant of meaningful data.
In my experience, the patent thicket is today's corporate strategy. The large companies I've worked for have undertaken a broad patent-everything strategy as a defensive way to turn any competitive claims into a game of patent tennis.
Secondly, the complexity of modern engineering means any individual invention is worthless by itself. If a lone inventor has an idea for a cool smartphone feature, they cannot practically bring it to market, because building a smartphone is too difficult and capital intensive, and requires licensing myriad other patents, mostly owned by incumbent vendors with no interest in allowing another competitor emerge.
This means that, even if every patent in an area is "good", a patent thicket[1] will nonetheless emerge in a field following a major breakthrough, as core and ancillary techniques are patented. A handful of large, dominant vendors come to monopolise the market, new players are locked out, and progress slows to molasses for the following twenty years. Only when these core patents begin to expire can progress start again, until some new major breakthrough is made, and the entire process repeats itself.
Through this lens, the rise of patent trolls makes sense. Faced with impenetrable, monopolised markets, individuals and smaller players are incentivized to engage in parasitic behaviour, gaming the patent system to extract what value they can, since actually using their patents to compete is either impossible or impractical.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_thicket