> In the latter half of the 19th century, “patent sharks” asserted dubious patents on mechanical devices. Then, as now, the problem arose because large numbers of poorly defined patents were granted, making it difficult for businesses to avoid inadvertently infringing.
> The problem was with patents that were granted for trivial ornamental design improvements to mechanical devices (now, the problem is with patents on software and business methods). The patent sharks initially went after the railroads. Then, in the 1870s, the sharks went after farmers, claiming that ordinary farm tools viol…