Trivial patents and waste/innovation (Score 2, Insightful)

To have trivial patents incurs a trivial patent gathering arms race where large technology firms waste resources protecting themselves from one another by accumulating trivial patents. For a government to prohibit trivial patents expends resources in arguing what patents are and are not trivial. Small firms can't amass much of an armory of trivial patents, so the innovation that comes from small firms is curtailed since a small firm's only defense is to avoid innovating in areas where they might be defenseless to an infringement claim. With software patents, your society pays, and the lawyers benefit.