Over on http://www.marco.org/2012/04/18/twitter-patent-agreement, marco amaneti advocates not patenting as a better way of fomenting innovation.

I'm afraid that with the AIA (America Invents Act) rolling in through 2013, and the change in the patent protection from "first to invent" to "first to patent (or disclose fully)," that may be ineffective and in fact fatal to a small firm!

Instead, perhaps what we need is a kind of "hacked" patent application, something like a Creative Commons for patents. Simple and cheap, and giving some form of right of reuse.