That’s apparently what a group of UK inventors are asking for. On the face of it, their arguments are pretty hard to dismiss: if you have a patent, it is extremely costly to “enforce” it and essentially means it’s only open to the big boys.

Sadly, the article doesn’t really talk much about patent quality or the goals of the patent system, and although it brings up the problem of accidental infringement / independent invention, it doesn’t really explore any possible solutions. Certainly, we do seem to have a system which requires a severe overhaul at the moment, though.