Steve -- I think we do it not because every patented invention is an exemplar of the system, but because some patents are so brilliant that they make up for all the grief that the rest of them put us through. Sort of like public education?
It's funny that you bring up patents, because I've been writing up an invention for the past few days. Obviousness is a real sticky point. If it weren't somewhat obvious, no one would understand it when you explain it. But if it were really obvious, then why isn't everyone doing it already? Consider the possibility that all of the morass of lobbying, patent trolling, copyright enforcement, tax avoidance, hedge funding, securities fraud, insider trading, election rigging, and so on that our society supports might actually be our way of keeping those devious people from finding even more damaging things to do. Our society, its legal and political system, is an ad hoc full employment act for the ethically challenged. We tolerate a population of unsavory things done by people in order to avoid the even less savory things they might do if we didn't give them some kind of sandbox to play in. -- rec --
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