this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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Because it is not really the idea specifically that you patent, you patent a method of making an idea work.
That honestly makes patents even less justifiable.
You’re not protecting a finished product or a brand reputation, you’re protecting a method, meaning you’re legally blocking alternative implementations around a problem space.
That’s exactly the kind of artificial restriction that slows competition and incremental innovation.
Patents are supposed to be pretty specific and open to alternative implementations that don't infringe, but the USPTO has made some pretty awful decisions, especially around early home computers.
That’s kind of my point.
If a system keeps getting abused to grant monopolies on absurdly broad concepts, maybe the problem isn’t just bad decisions, maybe the incentives themselves are broken.
And in practice, litigation costs alone already scare away competitors long before courts decide anything.
I'd call that a failure of capitalism, not of patents specifically. Any system stops working if you change the rules enough, and it was capitalism that allowed those rule changes.