[gmueckl]

I've seen plenty of seemingly dumb patents myself, but most of them are legal because an application of a known technique to a new field is considered novel in patent law. So if you design an amazing new zipper for jackets, I can probably copy that, put it on a backpack, and get a patent on that and there would be nothing wrong with that legally.

Well, there's legal and there's right. They are not not always the same.

[phkahler]

Your backpack example is a perfect illustration of my point. Thanks for that. It is a matter of degree of course, but the bar for patentability is really low IMHO. The new zipper may have been worthy of a patent, but every new instance of its use where another zipper was previously used should not be.