without the least explanation or argument? -- Your moniker indicates a financial motive; may be one of the sharks who lure people into filing on trivial notions, and when in any event, the cost of litigation to support the claim is out of their reach.

If SamJ is wrong, it's only because the system is currently gamed by re-patenting the same thing after a tiny change. Otherwise, I bet he's right.

SamJ - You are an idiot.

Try never. Congress will retroactively extend the length of patents years before that, and then will continue to do so indefinitely. There's too many lucrative cash cows expiring in the next few years for Corporate America not to pull the puppet strings.

http://igdmlgd.blogspot.com/2010/03/one-click-patent-reexamination-over.html