The supreme court has finally weighed in on some of the 'dumb' that we've been seeing in the headlines surrounding patent protection:

The results of ordinary innovation are not the subject of exclusive rights under the patent laws. Were it otherwise, patents might stifle rather than promote the progress of useful arts. The Circuit first erred in holding that courts and patent examiners should look only to the problem the patentee was trying to solve. Second, the appeals court erred in assuming that a person of ordinary skill in the art attempting to solve a problem will be led only to those prior art elements designed to solve the same problem...  (Justice Kennedy)

The only worry, of course, is that we'll now be leaving it up to Lawers (and Judges) to determine what "Ordinary" means.