One of my most persistent nightmares it that real molecular nanotechnology, when it comes into existence, will somehow be 'patented'. One company or group will be the only ones who legally can use their produced technologies… the result will be chaos, perhaps the end of the world. Or atleast expensive products and slowed progress. This news, specifically, certainly won't help me sleep at night.

As an innocent bystander, I have to agree that the current patent system is so flawed as to be a bad joke.

I repeatedly have to resist the temptation to patent "an octagon shaped device used to control the flow of traffic". Then I could license the technology back to the U.S. Government for only $1.00 per stop sign and reap windfall profits. The irony is they'd probably pay it…