I know this is offtopic, but it's a great point...
There's a paragraph that says "This is a fair point." next to it. It basically says that we all stand on the shoulders of giants - and that other inventions allow new inventions to be discovered/developed.
This is the EXACT reason I disagree with most patents.
Apologies for the off-topic rant, but it's one of my passions. I'm most probably preaching to the converted.