I'd rather be encouraging some crap inventors simply so that the truly talented ones could be spending the majority of their time doing what they're best at.

It almost seems like anti-incentive, to know that I could get sued for reverse engineering an API to implement a program that works with it, or by independently developing software code which happen to be covered by non-specific patents. Having that fear in the back of my mind is frequently enough to quash any self-generated incentive that I would have had in the first place. Without intervention, the other party's crap product wouldn't have been produced, and I would have been free to produce mine without being cowed by vague IP claims.

Score:3, Insightful