Silly Patents

There seems to be no lack of silly patents. For example, the Patented European Webshop shows an assortment of ungodly simple patents. I am fairly certain many of these patents, if rendered enforceable, would purely burden society with little benefit even to the patent holder. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also cites a number of ludicrous patents.

There are cases where software patents can be economically viable. However, consider the case where even novel, non-obvious, and useful technologies such as TCP, a core protocol of the internet. A license fee would have 1. stymied the internet with unnecessary economic burden, and 2. set a precedent for economic recovery in base technologies. However, in their absence the internet has become ubiquitous and cheap. Its accessibility is precisely what makes it a viable technology. The whole Request For Comment process has created a commons for innovation in fundamental internet processes, that would arguably be impossible for a single corporation. There are very few RFC's that would not qualify for a patent, and yet its commercialization is essentially non-existent.
Where, then, can software patents be useful? Innovation seems to be happening just fine without the economic rewards of patents. Indeed, innovation seems to be substantially superior in their absence. Perhaps the most valuable use of software patents is not in asserting claims but as a cross-licensing mechanism with other commercial entities. Is there a positive economic incentive, however? What about cases like the GIF or ZIP or MP3 patents? They were certainly complex procedures. However, interestingly enough, their successors, JPEG/PNG and deflate/Z and OGG were designed precisely to avoid the patents, and nevertheless seem to achieve uniformly superior quality without the burden of patents.

Certainly, there must be cases where patents should reward innovation. I find myself hard pressed to come up with circumstances where they are appropriate, offhand. Nevertheless, I will ponder this problem. Having heard very little about cases where patents are appropriate, and an enormous amount about cases where they are not, I must educate myself to alleviate this parallax.