I hate that the patent system went from engineers patenting a working, proven idea to business a-holes patenting an "idea" then sitting on their butts waiting for an engineer somewhere to prove the idea so that they can raise their hand and say "I have the patent on that".

The modern patent system is despicable.

There are actually provisions that are supposed to prevent that. It's called the enablement requirement. You cannot claim an invention that you don't know how to make. But in practice, it turns out to be easy to argue around that; there are so many non-experts involved in the process. So here we are.