Copyright reform AND Patent reform are long overdue
You have people wasting hours and hours filing patent requests for the stupidest of things
I worked for one company who invited a guy to every technology meetingt and we wasted at least half of each meeting with him butting in with comments about filing for a patent for anything anyone said
If you invent something new, or somethign you THINK is new, you should just be able to submit a simple form, and then it is registered and stamped with the date
There should be no need to search every exiting patent to see if something resembles it, that costs a lot of time and money
just file it, and then it is up to you to defend it, if someone else makes a million bucks off the idea.
The harsh reality is that the government exists to self-perpetuate and to grow in size and power. The very idea that it should be efficient and/or useful in its operation is a long-gone, quaint notion.
The fed gov is in desperate need of a major overhaul, and Copyright/Patent problems are only a symptom of the cancer.