That would be very difficult, and expensive too. Who checks, that the engineer is competent and unbiased? .

In Switzerland you would absolutely get a patent for the 90-degree angle! Provided it solves a technical problem, but I think this is the case here. (In Switzerland novelty is not checked by the patent examiner, but of course required by the patent law. In other European countries novelty is searched for by the examiner). But what would you do with such a patent? The chances to win a patent litigation over novelty is zero, as it is trivial to show prior art.

But for the 1-click patent it is obviously not so easy to find any documented prior art.

My common sense also tells me that this should not be patenable, but common sense is not a legal basis to revoke such an application.

I think to reject software patents alltogether is the best solution. Software "as such" isn't patentable in most parts of Europe. But there are of course ways arount that. For example, you can still patent a data carrier containing a specific software...

I was working as such a patent clerk (with focus on software) in Europe.

While it is easy to accept every software patent application (as in US) or reject all of them (as apparently now in New Zealand), it is very hard to find objective criteria to separate obvious things from truly innovative stuff.

The basic problem is, that in Software, there are usually very little unforeseen obstacles to overcome, when a concept is turned into actual code.

Lets say, state of the art is, that software A can do X, and software B can do Y.

Now somebody invents a software C that can do both, X and Y. Is this innovative? Usually not.

If we apply this example to the physical world, the situation is entirely different. A submarine can dive, and an aircraft can fly. Inventing a "machine" that can do both, would require a lot of innovation.

Now, a patentable idea has to be technically feasible. In the case of software, there is not much justification required, as every expert in the field knows, that it is in principle possible to combine X and Y. On the other hand, in the physical world, it requires much more than just an "idea" of a flying submarine to have a patentable innovation.

Therefore, it is very easy to apply for a patent for a software, that is unknown in the state of the art, while technically and economically feasible. In the physical world, this is much harder to achieve.

The problem is not, that the patent offices only have incompetent examiners. Rather, the definition of "patentable innovation" is not suitable for software.

Yes, quantum mechanics has some implications that indeed appear magical with our classical understanding of the world.

You did not read the article about the non-cloning theorem, did you? If you are familiar with the Heisenberg principle and are willing to accept it as a fact, the informal proof is quite easy to understand.

The point that you don't seem to understand is the fact, that in quantum cryptography, the measurement of the signal corresponds to a key guess in classical crypto. If in quantum crypto your guess is wrong, the measurement failed and there is no way you can measure again.

Yes, but they use the correct key.

5000 years was just an example. The time required for brute forcing depends on the key length. If the key is long enough, it takes 5000 years or more, no matter what hardware you use.

No need to be rude here.

When I was saying that you should learn some basics about QM, it was because I really think it would be a benefit for you. The quantum mechanics lectures changed my view of the world completely and I'm very happy I can understand fascinating things like quantum cryptography now.

But well, you can still say it's all bullshit what I'm saying, and stick with your Newtonian view of the world. But believe me, you miss something.

No, you can't due to the no-cloning theorem, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-cloning_theorem

Please do yourself a favor and learn some basics about quantum mechanics. The no-cloning theorem is a vital ingredient in quantum cryptography. The eavesdropping detection is a nice bye-effect, but QC offers much more than that. You simply cannot decrypt a 'quantum message' unless you know the key, period. If you try a wrong key the message is lost, hence the eavesdropping detection.

Let me illustrate this with a simplified model. Suppose I send you photons that are polarized either parallel or perpendicularly to the z-axis. You could distinguish the two states by using a polarization filter, and we could use those photons to exchange information (parallel = 0, perpendicular = 1). Now if Eve wants to intercept our communication, she has to use a filter as well. She will see exactly the same thing as you see, as long as her filter is aligned the same way as ours. If her filter is rotated by 45 degrees (let's called it the z' axis), she would notice that there are photons that are either polarized parallel or perpendicularly to the z' axis, and after the filter the photons will in fact be polarized with respect to the z' axis. But she won't be able to extract any information content, since the polarization along the z' axis is not related to the polarization along the z axis.

Now, if we use different polarization orientations (say z and z') for every photon, Eve would have to use the same sequence of orientations in order to be able to read our data.
In this QC model, the sequences of orientations is our encryption key. If unknown to Eve, she won't be able to decrypt our communication. It would violate fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, if Eve would be able to make backup copies of the photons before she uses the polarization filter or otherwise obtain the complete quantum state of the photons.

That beeing said, I agree with most of your other statements:
1. The key-sharing problem still exists
2. Best we can do today is a dedicated connection between to partners, an entire network is not possible.
3. Quantum crypto, while very interesting in theory, does not offer much benefit in practice.*

If it takes 5000 years to decrypt a classical crypto message, this is has the same impact as with quantum crypto, where decryption isn't possible at all. From a practical point of view, the eavesdropping detection might be the only added value.
Things might change, when classical cryptography is defeated by quantum computing, but this is another topic...