Comment Re: Patents cause progress stoppage (Score 4, Informative) 87
One of the abuses with patents is the continuous application for patents on the same area with minor adjustments on previous patents in order to essentially prevent the original invention patented from being free from patents once the initial one has expired.
It's certainly more limited in scope because they can't just wait until the initial patent is almost expired, but it is a problem that could easily be solved if examiners were willing to say that minor alterations do not a new invention make.