Patenting in general
What seems to be little understood is the underlying concept of patenting.
The patenting process requires that a device or process must be innovative and novel.
Or in other words there must not be any "Prior Art".
For that reason it should not be possible to obtain a patent on an existing item/process
which already occurs in nature or any other field.
However if a new process is developed to ascertain or arrive at a result then this process can and should be patentable even if the result may not be patentable.
The process of developing a new and innovative process or device can be very time consuming and very costly and a patent is intended to provide a limited time of monopoly like protection.
However, a patent is only as good as the money you have to pay for infringement litigation. It is a bit like justice; the more money you have the more justice you can afford.
Furthermore, a patent does not inhibit innovation. You are always free to improve on a patent using your innovative ingenuity and go and patent.
