What went wrong there? This sort of thing commonly happens when companies have a patent department that takes a lot of the burden of writing and proofing the patent from the inventor. Large companies (and German companies, in my experience) seem to fall into this trap, and issue patents which are very restrictive (sometimes to the particular product), missing trivial generalizations, and quite often mistaking the inventive step entirely.

There are other people who want to have a patent for their company, because they see it as a Certificate for being Very Clever. Often it isn’t that. if it is very clever and very obscure, then the obscurity may be protection enough. The things that need patenting are the very obvious things. Example: the Sony Walkman was lighter and cheaper than other cassette players because it did not have a record button. Really obvious when you see one, but they were the first to see it.

The complexities mostly arise from the changing nature of patents – are algorithms patentable? – are living organizims patentable? – are business methods patentable? Case law is like that. Unless you restrict the nature of innovation and protgress, we will always be feeling our way.

If we are going to simplify matters, the thing that would help most is a good book, website, or blog. Most people’s problems with patents are fairly trivial and cureable. And the other bits, no-one understands.