ytswy - 1:34 pm on Jun 15, 2007 (gmt 0)

I thought the recent KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc [nytimes.com] decision by the US supreme court was meant to have brought this under some sort of control.

If the combination results from nothing more than “ordinary innovation” and “does no more than yield predictable results,” the court said in a unanimous opinion, it is not entitled to the exclusive rights that patent protection conveys. “Were it otherwise,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the opinion, “patents might stifle, rather than promote, the progress of useful arts.”