Ask anyone who works in the tech world about the patent system and, unless they work for a patent troll, the response is likely to be vile. The system is so broken that developers and engineers can't build anything without risking tripping across someone else's patents; large companies keep patent infringement suits at bay with a "mutually assured destruction" strategy of grabbing as many patents as they can, and agreeing (formally or informally) not to sue others for infringement unless they are sued first. It's a bizarre and twisted system, and quite a few people (myself included) would like to see it abolished entirely. But that seems a fairly radical point of view.
But support for this radical idea has now come from an unlikely, rather conservative, place. The Atlantic reports on a paper prepared for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis by two professors at Washington University in St. Louis, Michele Boldrin and David Levine:
The Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them)
In plain-speak, the authors are arguing that, yes, the evidence suggests that having a limited amount of patent protection makes countries slightly more innovative, presumably by encouraging inventors to cash in on their great ideas without fear of being ripped off. But patent protections never stay small and tidy. Instead, entrenched players like intellectual property lawyers who make their living filing lawsuits and old, established corporations that want to keep new players out of their markets lobby to expand the breadth of patent rights. And as patent rights get stronger, they take a serious toll on the economy, including our ability to innovate.
The paper itself is available here.
(The paper notes that "Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Working Papers are preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comment. References in publications to Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Working Papers (other than an acknowledgment that the writer has had access to unpublished material) should be cleared with the author or authors." Which is bizarre, since it's posted on a public website and is prominently linked to from an index page, and thus is in fact published. I'm guessing this is boilerplate carried over from pre-web days.)