What's up with the patent system

Everyone knows that the patent system in the US is broken. It's original purpose to protect inventors has been completely overtaken by the interests of large companies and the interest of patent holding companies. The Patent Office is supposed to scrutinize each patent and approve them only after it has been confirmed that the patent meets the criteria set in patent law. Instead, the patent office grants almost any patent. Their excuse is that the courts can later decide if a patent is valid or not.

Letting the courts decide would be a good idea if it were free and took a reasonable amount of time. Defending yourself in a patent infringment lawsuit costs millions of dollars and takes years.

I see three good options to solve this problem:

1 - Make the patent office do its job aided by netizens. Publish every patent in a blog format and collect comments for 3 months. Comments should be structured and categorized. For example, a comment may be in the category of "prior art" or "too obvious".

2 - Hire good professionals in every technological area. Each patent should include a "problem statement" indicating what is being solved. Then let two of the professionals in the specific area of the patent work for a month on trying to solve the problem. If the solution found is too close to the patent - nix the patent. Of course, the question is who pays for the professional's work. They are hired by the patent office as contractors. If the patent is assigned to a company then they are paid by the company the patent is assigned to. If the patent is submitted by an individual then some other equitable payment structure needs to be devised.

3 - Transform the patent office into a "patent registration office". Anything you want to patent you post it in the patent office web site. Once posted, it is as good as a granted patent. Let the courts decide if they hold or not.

It should be noted that option 3 has more or less the same results as the current process, but it is much cheaper as the majority of the patent office employees can be repurposed.