Have you ever read Bleak House, the Dickens classic in which lawyers fight incessantly over a disputed inheritance until they gobble it all up in legal fees? With the U.S. Patent Office now handing out a staggering number of patents on various methods of doing business-as opposed to actual inventions-it looks like we're in for a modern-day remake. In today's version of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce (the interminable Bleak House proceeding), lawyers haggle over these absurdly vague and broad patents, squandering not just money but the very innovation the patent system was established to stimulate.

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