A patent grants a significant property right: a monopoly to exclude others from the sale, use, and manufacture of a claimed invention. Such a property right should only go to an inventor who has shown their claimed invention works. Granting exclusionary property rights to an inventor who has merely contemplated an invention would flood the patent system with nonsense inventions that would inhibit innovation by monopolizing potential discoveries that have not been actualized. When an invention is pure speculation, a monopoly should not be granted, but the line begins to blur when researchers submit patent applications purporting to disclose an invention yet lacking the requisite proof. These applications raise doubts as to whether the inventor is in actual possession of the invention. In Europe, the line has blurred due to differing standards of evaluating whether a claimed invention has been plausibly disclosed. The G 2/21 decision by the Enlarged Board of Appeals for the European Patent Office sought to unify these standards. However, G 2/21 and its subsequent interpretations have opened the door for more speculative patents than before, especially outside of the chemical arts.
