The American Patent System

The patent system in the United States is broken. Patents are granted for “inventions” that aren’t innovative. For example, Apple was granted a patent on “slide to unlock,” which has been in fence gates for many years. The validity of a patent is not contingent on progress of the invention. Courts making rulings on patent cases aren’t knowledgeable about the industry or invention in question. A recent Supreme Court ruling about a patent on DNA was decided by judges without any experience in DNA sequencing. There isn’t an easy way to search the patent database. There is no patent exchange currently in existence. I think that all of these problems should be fixed to make room for the modern age. Patents should be granted or denied based on innovation; this should be determined by an expert in the field the patent is being filed in. If no significant progress is made on an invention for five years after the patent was issued then that patent should go up for sale in a public auction similar to the stock exchange. Lastly, there should be an easy to use, online patent database; I found the current version confusing to use.