[darkarmani]

The Carmack Reverse is an easy example software developers can understand. Paraphrased: "How can something that can be solved by a week of work by a professional in the field be something that can be patented?" Sure it's novel, but it only took an expert a week to re-invent by following a causal chain of reasoning about the problem.

[sporkologist]

This of course violates the purpose of patenting in the first place, to create and market something not obvious to those currently working in the field. The fact that the patent system is that broken is pretty chilling.