The US Patent system is broken

OK, this isn't really news; it's common knowledge. But I have a specific example.

As I was working on my resume, I did a search for all of my issued patents. The system is so slow, that it takes somewhere around 4-5 years after the application for a patent to be issued. A new one had been issued since the last time I checked: 7,360,165 — Addresses as objects for email messages issued on April 15, 2008.

The only problem is, the US Patent Office already granted this exact patent three years before on May 17, 2005. Check out 6,895,426 — Addresses as objects for email messages.

It appears that some lawyer at Microsoft uncovered the original research for the the Email Addresses as Objects patent, and somehow thought that it hadn't been written up and submitted. So they did, and the USPO happily granted it. Again.

While I do enjoy having more patents, this isn't quite the way I hoped to achieve that. In fact, it's ridiculous. The system is broken, and while I have utmost respect for Nathan Myrvold as an visionary design thinker, his Intellectual Ventures is a farce. IV is content to stand by the sidelines making no attempt to implement the designs in the patents they hold, instead leveraging the broken system to extort money from people actually in the arena.