Posner pointed out that a smartphone may well contain (and violate) thousands of patents. That right there is a sure sign that something is rotten in the state of the patent system.
This sentence has made me think that there seems to be an amazing parallel between the patent industry and medicine. In the past, patents were quite simple and few, and one could see how things should go in patent disputes. Patents did not get complicated at a granular level because the level of knowledge necessary to identify how complex things can actually get did not exist yet.
For medicine as well, symptom analysis and disease diagnosis was very limited to our level of knowledge. As our knowledge increased, the complexity of our treatment strategies increased, such that there is a large overhead for diagnosis and treatment, just like there is a large overhead for patent disputes.
The difference is that for patents, it probably doesn't need to be as complex as it is, while for medicine, it probably does need to be as complex as it is.
This sentence has made me think that there seems to be an amazing parallel between the patent industry and medicine. In the past, patents were quite simple and few, and one could see how things should go in patent disputes. Patents did not get complicated at a granular level because the level of knowledge necessary to identify how complex things can actually get did not exist yet.
For medicine as well, symptom analysis and disease diagnosis was very limited to our level of knowledge. As our knowledge increased, the complexity of our treatment strategies increased, such that there is a large overhead for diagnosis and treatment, just like there is a large overhead for patent disputes.
edit: great example: http://xkcd.com/931/
The difference is that for patents, it probably doesn't need to be as complex as it is, while for medicine, it probably does need to be as complex as it is.