> When it is better to "own" old IP than to make new one, the system is strangling innovation, nothing else.

Nailed it with that one. That's exactly why companies like Microsoft and IBM [1] fight so hard to keep the current patent system, or even make it worse. They have so much more to gain by rent-seeking with their old bogus patents than by creating new ones (especially if the new ones would have to be put through much more rigorous filtering), since they're not really the innovators in the tech industry anymore.

[1] - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/20...

> This system is for the "owners" not for the "creators"!

Nor the consumers, who end up paying for this mess.

If you count history as starting recently, then sure. However, the patents came AFTER the refining of an idea to concrete steps which came AFTER the funding to refine the idea which came AFTER the guy/gal with the idea finding funding to refine the idea.

One thing investors fear is investing in small unknown people where once the secret sauce is visible, it can be easily copied. In particular, copied by large corporations with customer channels, marketing muscle, deployed software installations with patch/upgrade cycles, etc... Investors often look at barriers to entry which patents happen to provide.

The problem is only, that patents happen to protect the big companies more often than any small company.

There was once a company, it got visited by the lawyers of a big corporation.

They claimed that this company violated patent X of the corporation and they wanted Y millions for it. The smaller company proofed that they did not violate this specific patent.

The lawyers just said, that their corporation owned X thousands of patents and many, many lawyers worked for it. If they go empty today, they will search and find 10 patents that where violated by the smaller company.

Tell what, the smaller company paid.

It might be, that to own some patents is good and to ask for it is reasonable for investors. But with the view on the nationwide or world-wide economics, patents are essential bad.

I once also heard (I am not so good in this history, so sorry I can not give details), that the US economy and inventions had so a quick rise, one reason was because they at first abandoned the patent system of the UK and did not care about the patents in the "old world".

That example is not an isolated incident and happens far too often. It has been part of the large corporations game plan for years now. They have found ways of using the patent system to attack small entities AND have used their deep pockets to drag out justice for the small entity.

Patent reform should focus on helping small and independent innovators, when in reality it is being driven by large deep-pocketed corporations.

>Patent reform should focus on helping small and independent innovators, when in reality it is being driven by large deep-pocketed corporations.

That is right. I am also wondering all the time about the focus of patent reforms: so called patent-trolls. But as annoying they might be, the whole case looks very much like a diversionary tactic to distract from the real problems of the system.

Not quite. Those so called patent trolls are the thorn in the side of the large corporations. Even after a small entity succeeds in obtaining a patent and has their innovation copied by a large corporation and opens a dialogue with the large corporation, he/she is shunned and told to get lost. One large corporation (Apple) is at least honest about it and tells the small entity we can't take you seriously until you initiate a patent infringement suit [1]. The reason is rather simple: it is their most cost effective way of weeding out those they do need to worry about from those they can ignore.

[1] http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2013/05/01/is-patent-litigation-re...

And it is also a convenient way to hold smaller companies with good ideas but smaller pockets at bay.

A pressing problem is the fact that a large slice of Americans believe that the owners are the creators.

I agree. But that believe is wrong.

The thing about "IP" is also, that differently from "ideas" or "inventions" -- "property" can be sold and bought. Also in the most cases, inventors are small people in big corporations that just get some small and fixed (at least in Germany this is the normal case) money for it. A bargain for the corporation that "owns" from now on the "ideas" and "inventions" of their employees.

Make a price tag on everything and you will get a world not worth living in!

Indeed. It reminds me of how Steve Jobs received credit for Jony Ive's designs[0]. Americans have been raised and convinced to believe that CEOs and business executives are the source of all creativity, and that their wealth is a logical result of that.

[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-would-annoy-jony-i...