This is a little off topic but since it came up; I have never undertood the concept of patents. When I was starting out as a researcher at university all those years ago we had somebody come in and talk about IP and patents. What he essentially told me is that you cannot patent an idea but you can patent a method. Trouble is that most of the things I've seen patented are ideas and often the method itself is an idea anyway. I remember him then asking the audience can you patent a green ball. I thought, no, but it turned out you can because high visibility ball is the idea and painting it green is the method. He then went on to discuss how to file for a patent and the cost. I've been confused about and hated patents since then. To me they do not promote innovation, they are merely a barrier to entry for independent inventors.