The US patent office seems to be lurching from problem to problem. The latest is a high-profile accusation that the quality of US patents is declining - from the US Patent Office’s own chief, Jon Dudas.

He last week questioned whether his organisation was “making it too easy for people who want to file poor [patent] applications”.

The other recent controversy that has dogged the patent office is the problem of patent trolling - aggressively using patents to extract money, sometimes using a patent for nothing else. A US bill proposed to fight it was recently scuppered - something welcomed by small-time inventors who were set to lose out.

The US patent system certainly seems to cause a lot of arguments. And it’s certainly something worth arguing over - the patent system exerts much influence on how technology can develop.

One of the most contentious lines across which arguments occur is this: is the patent system simply badly administered, or is the current model for patents simply not up to supporting the future of our technological development?

Tom Simonite, online technology reporter

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