Patents should only be for things, not software or methods.
Maybe big pharma and biotech should realize that large scale patent abuse is making people question the whole thing and start lobbying against software patents.
> I was just thinking the same thing. I used to just sort of accept that patents were a reasonable and necessary thing. Then after being in the actual business of software for a while as a startup entrepreneur and seeing the complete mess spurious patent claims cause, how patents are so often deployed by mega-corps to defend against startups, and the huge number of grifters the patent "industry" attracts, it's made me more open to the idea that just maybe the whole idea of patents is now more trouble than it's worth.
IMHO, that's taking it too far. IP is a solution that solved certain problems; but it's been so effective that those original problems are so alien that people overreact to the imperfections of the solution in extreme ways (like, "let's abolish it all").
So far as I can tell, the problem IP laws originally solved was that wealthy people wanted another way to create monopolies and extract rents. For that purpose, they certainly are effective.