Just like Google probably would not have even contemplated patenting a search that draws on multiple data sources back in 2004 (it's actually kind of hard to conceive of search in the modern world that doesn't!) - but Apple came along and patented that.
I'm coming to a belief that the patent system's brokenness is hugely amplified by the presumption of validity given by the courts. You can either have a very rigorous up front patent examination system and a presumption thereafter of validity, or you can have a loose / quick review process and a balanced treatment in the courts (no presumption either way).
But you can't have a patent system where > 50% of patents fail to be proved valid when challenged in the courts (which is how the current system is) AND a presumption of validity.
If I could change one thing about the patent system, I would probably introduce a "vexatious litigant" style restriction that said if your patents fail to survive court challenges > 50% of the time then you lose the presumption of validity on ALL your patents. That would put an immediate stop to all these BS cases that are basically just trying to trip up / delay competitors with patents that they know will fail eventually under scrutiny.
> Just like Google probably would not have even contemplated patenting a search that draws on multiple data sources back in 2004 (it's actually kind of hard to conceive of search in the modern world that doesn't!) - but Apple came along and patented that.
Now just think about Google's (and Samsung's and HTC's and ...) probable reaction to discovering they can be blindsided by not patenting something they thought was obvious. If you think things are bad now, just wait a few years.
Apple's patent on multi-source search appears to involve search of local and remote sources. There are far older examples of multi-source search that live entirely on the server (e.g. MetaCrawler from '94)
But that just makes matters worse - once you have search over multiple sources, and you have search on the desktop, and you have web based search, the multiple sources bit is a small iteration.
