On the other hand, anyone wanting to buy it for a fair price wouldn&#x27;t get it: our patent system (maybe others) is too rigged for owners for that even ignoring its broken aspects. One measure said a smartphone might be covered by 250,000 patents with multiple claims. How does a small business with little to no investment legally determine who they&#x27;d owe, how much, and pay just that? They can&#x27;t even if they want to. And they&#x27;ll be hit by trolls as well.<p>Wanting to treat it like software and market economy in such a situation makes sense. I&#x27;m for limiting the effect of patents to the lifecycle their functionality represents. For instance, an improvement for version 12 is protected until version 13 is released. Maybe add some time. Long-term stuff, like fundamental techs, get more protection. Current system just kills innovation by every measure I&#x27;ve seen or locks it into oligopolies. There&#x27;s exceptions here and there that are small players making it. Mostly just anti-competitive.<p>&quot; What he means by &quot;innovate&quot; is &quot;add some tiny feature to someone else&#x27;s thing.&quot;&quot;<p>That&#x27;s most innovation: rehashes of and improvements on existing stuff. Theirs sounds like straight up using something but even inventing it yourself is a violation if a patent <i>maybe</i> covers it. Still need heavy-hitting lawyers or consult tons of patents per commit&#x2F;algorithm. Seems impossible. Even big boys don&#x27;t bother to do that: they just collect their own patents and use them as leverage for potential countersuits. Whole model is broken for startups in such industries if not looking to be sued or acquired.<p>So, for crap like this, I tell them to copy away because that&#x27;s what the pro-patent competition are doing too. Out of necessity. Pay what you have to, esp what&#x27;s justified (real innovation). Otherwise, don&#x27;t give a shit and stay out of U.S. if extra worried. I&#x27;ve known many in HW business (esp ASIC&#x27;s) that do that.