Interview with Dr. Dirk Franke. The following topics are covered: the future of the profession of a European patent attorney, patent litigation costs, trivial patents; how to find a qualified patent attorney, EU patent (unitary patent), changes in the European patent system over the next 15 to 25 years
Summary of Interview (pdf, in German)
Published on Dec. 15, 2014 | Source: Akademische Blätter, issue IV/2014
Interestingly, the German word “Trivialpatent” has no equivalent in English language.
Although it might be open to debate if patents should be granted for rather simple inventions, such as the one click buying technique of Amazon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click), it is generally understood that trivial (=obvious) inventions cannot be protected by patents.