Which brings us back to why we do so many things in base ten to begin with... we only have ten characters that represent numbers! Sure you can represent hex numbers with A,B,C,D,E, and F but that's just using letters for a lack of a better alternative.
I'm generally against software patents but I don't see it going anywhere in the near future. Do you think we could somehow raise the standard in the meantime thus challenging the claims and decreasing the number of new patents? Then, once the standard has been raised, the courts may begin to throw out some of the older broad claims. Then, to really lock them down, we could make patents non-transferable. If you can't sell your patent (including when a company gets bought) then there would be no more patent trolls.
12 does halve out to a round number! Six, as you suggested. Divide any number by two enough times and you'll end up with a fraction. However, dividing by two is just as random as counting by 12. Everyone seems to think base-X is a poor system but no one is explaining why. What are the qualities by which we're rating counting systems?
I think we should count from 5 to -1. It seems to work well for the comments on this site.