[scromar]

That's one of the issues though. Which patents are the "truly new" ones and which are the "trivial ones"? It seems like many software patents seem obvious in hindsight, a few years down the road, but they were not obvious at the time of invention.

[claudius]

This is of course true, although there are really some rather trivial ones even at the time of invention (or already outdated at the time of filing).

Maybe it would be helpful to adapt the protection period (20 years, IIRC) to the rate of innovation in the industry?