Last year, the federal government issued more than 50,000 patents, granting inventors the right, for 17 years, to exclude all others from making, using, or selling their inventions within the United States. But — as many inventors have found out after an average two-year wait and about $1,200 in legal and other fees — patents may be worth no more than
The patent system,” Abraham Lincoln once said, “added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.” And Lincoln was in a position to know — in 1849, he had patented a device for buoying ships over shoals, an invention he thought might revolutionize shipping on the nation’s inland waterways. It didn’t. Lincoln’s invention was never manufactured, a fate