Refrigerator patents

According to the Wall St Journal, Whirlpool and LG settled their patent suits over household refrigerators yesterday.  Wow.  The household refrigerator was invented a hundred years ago.  You would think the patents had expired by now.  Ingenious lawyers, aided and abetted by the ever helpful US Patent Office, have managed to bill yet more hours over trivia. 
  The last go round was over "the concept of a refrigerator dispenser with an extendable tray and water spigot".  And that idea really really deserved a patent because it was not obvious to any housewife, let alone someone "skilled in the art".
   We could get the economy moving again except every time someone puts a product on the market they get sued by patent trolls.  There is nothing new about refrigerators.

Patents on Tax Shelters

I knew the good old Patent Office was granting a lot of outrageous patents lately, but I never knew it was this bad. They are issuing patents for tax shelters, bits of legal fakery used to avoid paying income tax. Finally a few congressmen got up the backbone to attempt to outlaw this scam on the part of the patent office. They issued this press release just before Thanksgiving.
About time. While they are at it how about outlawing "business methods" patents, and patents on software? And requiring a working model before granting a patent. And outlawing patents on genes. And outlawing patents on obvious ideas and prior art?