Found an really interesting quote from /.
So why does the patent office keep on granting so many obviously stupid patents?
It is not primarily because the patent examiners are incompetent, as is often suggested. Instead it is the economics of running a patent office that make sure that it becomes like this.
Nowadays most patent offices around the world are “self funded”, which means that they are funded by the fees that the collect from the patent applicants. This may perhaps seem like a sensible idea at first sight, but unfortunately it invariably leads to lower and lower standards for what is patentable.
A look at the USPTO Fee Schedule explains the underlying math.
The initial application fee for a patent is $300. In order to collect that money, the patent office has to do quite a lot of work: set up a file, do an initial formal examination, perform a novelty search, and quite often engage in correspondence with the applicant to sort out various issues. It seems reasonable to assume that initial applications “as such” do not cover their own costs for the patent office.
But once a patent has been granted, nice things start to happen to the patent office’s profitability calculations.
In order to keep his patent valid, the proprietor has to pay maintenance fees at regular intervals. $900 is due at 3.5 years after it was granted, $2,300 due at 7.5 years, and $3,800 due at 11.5 years.
For a patent that is renewed throughout its full term, the maintenance fees add up to $7,000, compared to the $300 for the initial application.
And the renewal fees are the good part of the patent office business, since the PTO doesn’t actually have to do anything for the money, except make a note in the file that the fee has been paid. So for those patent offices around the world that are funded in whole or in part by the fees they collect, there is a direct incentive to let the standards slip to the lowest level they can possibly get away with.
The result can be seen at a patent office near you.