Most people, including myself, cannot actually read patents. Being told that the summary is irrelevant does not help at all. What are we supposed to do, ignore the patent because we don't understand it?
If you're a programmer, you can read software patents.
If you're a mechanical engineer, you can read mechanical patents,
If you're a farmer, you can read farming patents.
See how that works? The language is dense, and you must read carefully, but the patents I have actually read are not particularly difficult to understand.
> If you're a programmer, you can read software patents.
Here I can bring in a different definition of "can". I could if I wanted browse different software patents, but that just puts me or my company in more legal trouble especially if sometime later I happen to develop something similar enough to a patent I've previously read that I get sued over it. It's not a good idea to just read patents blindly if you have any interest in building stuff that might get popular.
Rabble rabble rabble. I hate this attitude: I don't understand software patents, and I'm not going to take the time to learn about them, therefore they need to go.
If you're a mechanical engineer, you can read mechanical patents,
If you're a farmer, you can read farming patents.
See how that works? The language is dense, and you must read carefully, but the patents I have actually read are not particularly difficult to understand.