First, the key idea that I think is wrong is the notion that invention per se is what's important. But what really creates value for the United States and for the customers is when you deliver the technology to customers in a way they can be used and that, that has not been the focus of the patent law, for good and sufficient reasons, in the past. The second thing that I think, at least in our domain, that is a misconception is that people actually read patents and use them to advance the wrong technology. No engineer I've ever known has been willing to read other people's patents, and most people feel, at least in our field, that patents don't describe things with enough particularity to know how to copy them anyway. As I said earlier, the patent process is fundamental in the legal process, a lot of lawyer bashing goes on, some of it justified, much of it not, but in any case recognize that the process of delivering innovation to the customer is a totally different culture, it's a totally different process, than that required to obtain and enforce a patent.
Small companies hate it.
Engineers, most engineers I've ever known hate it, and they're very uncomfortable and they're very vulnerable to this kind of process. The other point is that the legal system doesn't really comprehend the technology. That randomness, then, introduces enormous transfer costs and friction costs because it doesn't really afford, the current system, doesn't really afford us a lot of inexpensive ways to resolve the issue. Well, these Japanese companies happen to be our customers, they're not our competitors because they don't sell any products, but it is a little worrisome that Hitachi's got 49 patents in this area and they don't sell anything and we've got zero patents in this area. So if we were an earlier-stage company, it would be even more worrisome because the ability of the large company to block the small company creates a lot of uncertainty.