A recent news item has put patents back on the discussion agenda. According to IT web site Ars Technica, Microsoft has filed a patent in the US for an advertising framework capable of serving up targeted ads to computer users based on any and all data that happens to be stored on the computer’s hard drive.

I’m sure this description alone will have alarm bells ringing in the minds of readers. Just imagine the security implications if someone on the corporate network installed such software, which scans through “user document files, user email, user music files, podcast files, computer status messages” then, presumably, reports its findings back to the mothership in some form.

Of course, that the patent has been filed does not necessarily mean that Microsoft is planning to implement such a service. It would be such a disastrously bad move from a PR viewpoint that it would be astonishing if this were to happen. A more likely reason for the filing is that, in the Machiavellian world of intellectual property, Microsoft hopes to get in a pre-emptive strike against anyone else considering the same technology.

Much has already been written about patents, particularly in relation to software, but what struck me when reading reports about Microsoft’s application is just how little innovation there seems to be. Searching through data on a computer hard disk is hardly new, and neither is serving up adverts based on information about users. Surely it was an obvious step in bringing these technologies together?

Ah, but I’m forgetting that this is the US system, under which someone has patented a method for refreshing bread – otherwise known as toasting.

Readers should consider that bad patents affect all of us in the IT industry. A former colleague of mine held the opinion that it is in the economic interests of the US to permit dubious patents. Since the country has the largest economy in the world, any large vendor has to do business there, which means paying royalties to any local company that might have patented some otherwise trivial business process. The US government, of course, gets to collect taxes from that money.

Therefore, trivial patents not only stifle innovation, they add to the cost of products and services. It is we, the customers, who ultimately pay for costly patent litigation or for royalties on intellectual property.

The patent system seems in dire need of a rethink, and it is tempting to solve the problem by simply abolishing patents. But let’s not forget the reason patents exist in the first place: to reward those who come up with genuinely new inventions that benefit us all.