[thayne]

> The most effective way to eliminate bad patents would be to increase the amount of time patent examiners get.

I disagree. I think the most effective way to eliminate bad patents would be to eliminate patents altogether. If there are no patents then there can be no bad patents:)

More realistically, it would be more efficient to stop bad patents before they make it to the patent office and waste patent officers' time. And the best way to do that is probably to reduce the incentives to file bad patents. I don't know what the most effective way to do that is though, maybe expire patents sooner, limit the number of patents an entity can file in a period of time, increase the fee for each additional patent filed, a penalty for patents that are rejected or invalidated, require you to actually produce (or license to someone else to produce) the thing you patent in order to keep it, etc.