[Beldin]

Since this discussion is all about patents: my 2 cents on improving the patent system.

Consider a term project of an undergraduate CS course, where the goal is spelled out, but the method is left for discovery.

Methods developed within any such project immediately invalidate patents. They're apparently obvious to folks learning to become "skilled in the art".

Yes, in practice, reaching a legal threshold would be hard (are you sure the students didn't read the patent or any description directly resulting from it?). But I'd definitely run a "patent invalidation course" - if I had confidence that the results would actually affect patents.