I like his suggestion, and it's rare to actually hear a new idea in how to resolve the patent problem.

However I find it odd that in the preamble he points out Apple, but presumably something like an iPhone would easily fall into the class of special purpose computing equipment, so Apple's case would be unaffected by it. In fact, it might even encourage mobile phone platforms to become more locked down and restrictive so as to avoid falling into the definition of a "general purpose" computer. Thus there could be a very dangerous backfiring of this if the definitions were not clear and broad.