Patents are not (should not) be about ideas. Patents are about inventions you make and want to licence or exploit by your own. They define the invention so that your clients or yourself are protected from copycats. It is very close to copyright protection where trinity gets tazed for copying the novel. It make sense.

The problem is patenting the concept of a novel. This is really questionnable. How much inventive is that ? This is where the line is fuzzy to set.