The Jury system in the US is actually well suited deciding complex moral questions and too much fine print hinders more than it heps, which was evident in this case.

To me, instead of a patent office there should be a central online register to archive jury-understandable photos and descriptions or ideally videos of the stuff you do simply to have a validated reference of when you thought of it.

And then patent/IP Law may simply should read soething like this: It is ok to base any creative work on the work of others as long as the result is something new and great in it´s own right.

It´s not ok to copy the work of others without significantly improving it simply for making money.

Done. Plain Language.

Everything else, the moral right or wrong would be left to a Jury with guidance from a Judge.

Which they basically did in the Apple case. All that patent BS aside, I guess they descided on the basic morale question and started the paperwork.