The recent round of patent-based suits and countersuits among major and minor players in the smartphone industry has raised questions about the U.S. Patent Office’s policies.

On second thought, it raises just one question: What the hell?

Everyone agrees that patent law is a huge mess, the sort of mess rarely seen outside of Fresno’s annual “Unsupervised Toddler and Malamute Spaghetti Feed.” And yet, it remains a mess, year after year, in spite of pundits, politicians and protesters standing around clucking their tongues and making that finger gesture of shame that only grade-schoolers usually...