I think we have generally mixed up "value" and "cost".
Patents are (or should be?) a legal construct providing a temporary monopoly on an invention to incentivize investment into (costly) research. I.e. protect the "cost" of an invention.
Cost, however, is not necessarily directly related to value.
Patents (imho) should not protect "value". If you have a great idea one morning, that might indeed be very valuable.
But you would have had that idea regardless of whether its patentable or not, and society as a whole is not better served by granting monopolies on such ideas.
Instead the market decides who builds the best product.
Other IP protections such as Copyright are still crucial for this obviously.
In the end I think that (case) law usually reflects general trends in society.
This is not a society of altruism (anymore) but a society of the mantra "take the money and run". Once or if that changes the law will eventually match that.
One way out of this mess is to document, publicly, every idea - however insignificant it might be. That way there will be prior art to everything that is obvious.
Patents are (or should be?) a legal construct providing a temporary monopoly on an invention to incentivize investment into (costly) research. I.e. protect the "cost" of an invention.
Cost, however, is not necessarily directly related to value.
Patents (imho) should not protect "value". If you have a great idea one morning, that might indeed be very valuable. But you would have had that idea regardless of whether its patentable or not, and society as a whole is not better served by granting monopolies on such ideas. Instead the market decides who builds the best product. Other IP protections such as Copyright are still crucial for this obviously.
In the end I think that (case) law usually reflects general trends in society. This is not a society of altruism (anymore) but a society of the mantra "take the money and run". Once or if that changes the law will eventually match that.
One way out of this mess is to document, publicly, every idea - however insignificant it might be. That way there will be prior art to everything that is obvious.