Progress vs Innovation

Patents were supposed to encourage innovation, but in today's patent landscape, it is the exact opposite.  Today, companies are forced to pay a "patent tax" because everything is patented.  Patent trolls talk about getting paid for their innovations.  Are they really innovating, though?  Where does the line between progress and innovation start?

Lets go back a few years before the mobile space really got popular.  When communicating wirelessly, security is an issue.  You don't want the NSA to ease drop on your pizza order that you placed using a mobile device.  To prevent ease dropping, you decided to encrypt the communication.  You decide not to create your own new encryption.  You decide to use THE INTERNET STANDARD encryption.  You decide to secure an HTTP webserver with SSL.  Now, HTTP and SSL are open standards that are not covered by patents.  The RSA and AES algorithms that 99% of SSL communication use are covered by patents.  Those patents have since expired, however.  This is the idea of patents.  While RSA and AES were new, the inventors, who actually invented something, got exclusive rights.  This temporary monopoly gives inventors an incentive to make the initial innovation.  They could charge a fee for people who make use of those patents.  After a period of time, they lose that monopoly.  The loss of the monopoly creates two different types of incentive.  First, the inventor can't just sit on their butts collecting royalties forever.  If they want to keep making money, they have to take the money you made and invest it into more innovations.  Second, new companies can use the now old innovations to enable them to create new innovations.  A (proper) patent system promotes innovation in a recursive way!

So, where does the problem lie?  The problem is with overly broad patents.  In the HTTP/SSL example, the encryption algorithm was the "invention" that was patented.  Today, you can just patent using SSL on a new type of device!  For example, many companies have patents for encrypting communication on mobile devices.  I'm not talking about a new algorithm that is well suited for mobile devices (although patents for that do exist).  I'm talking about the IDEA that you would encrypt on mobile devices.  Now, every time a new "thing" comes out, people patent everything that you can possible do with that device.  Now, if you want to use standard technologies (that in some cases are required by law) you have to either pay a patent troll, or pay a lawyer to find a patent troll.

At some point, the "invention" (encryption on mobile devices) is just the next progression of technology.  In this case, literally nothing new was written.  The code that does the encryption already worked on the mobile devices.  Putting together an app that uses encryption, or rounded corners, or a green phone icon shouldn't require you to pay a patent tax!

P.S.  Pro tip!  Someone should patent using encryption on wrist watches!