Amen brother.
Patents are the biggest crock in town. I wouldn't mind if they were for "real" inventions. But in my business (GPS guidance), there are all kinds of patents granted for quite obvious things. Prior art is supposedly not patentable, but they grant patents on it all the time.
For instance, if someone had a patent for, say, using Loran C to navigate on a river. Then someone else can get a second patent to use GPS to navigate on a river. That's BS. If you could do it with Loran C, or any other electronic navigation system, then you can do the same with GPS. It's Prior art.
But the lawyers like the money, so they give patents for every thing under the sun and let companies spend money fighting it out in court.