[slabity]

Or worse, a small player developing something and then finding out after the fact that a junk patent prevents them from even selling the thing to begin with.

[worthless-trash]

See, this to me is the stupidest part of the whole system. Its essentially saying that 'first movers advantage' of an idea is something that can be protected for the life of a patent.

You can be tripped over by patents you don't even know existed in unrelated fields, owned by people who didnt even work with the patent. So stupid.