The rounded joke is the easy one to make, of course. However, Apple did lose against Samsung on that count. There must be some sort of herding mentality that people go through, where people in general grab onto sound bites, instead of taking the time to do a deep dive into the issues. It usually happens in politics. On HN, I would hope for more.

*herding. On HN, I would hope for better spelling.

They'll be bared from entering into a rounded orbit.

You jest but a Boeing patent on a specific satellite manuever had the effect of decommissioning a satellite.

http://www.google.com/patents?vid=6116545

The full story here: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Boeing_Patent_Shuts_Down...

Perhaps patents will be the last thing that saves human-driven cars.

You can get an injunction against self-driving cars that can do the newly patented three-point-turn (its not prior art because now it uses a COMPUTER system!), but you can't stop a driver from doing it!

Patents definitely foster progress by the looks of it.

They also have to ensure there aren't any objects that might bounce back during lift off. :)