Patent reform could be end of invention

Invention in America has turned ugly – it costs too much and risks are too high.

So what happened to bring this kind of damage to all of us? I think it’s because we are hunting a comic book character – a patent troll. Many describe this fictitious character as an unscrupulous inventor who sues a small business for infringement. The small business has to settle even though it doesn’t feel they infringe, because it is far too expensive and risky to fight it.

To slay the patent trolls, since 2005, virtually every significant change to [US] patent law has had the by-product of increasing the risks and costs for inventors. The America Invents Act did this in 2011, and now, four years later, we are told the patent troll problem has worsened and we need to pass the Innovation Act, which would further raise those risks and costs. The result is that the solution is creating a new problem.

Paul Morinville - NWI Times

Why America’s patent system is not killing innovation

U.S. laws over intellectual property give companies the incentive to invest billions in research and development of new products and services. “Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”

The old saying, often attributed to Mark Twain, is as applicable today as in his time. And in the intellectual property arena, a “good story” has been going around recounting the death of American innovation at the hands of an outmoded and obstructive patent system. But, again to paraphrase Twain, rumors of innovation’s death have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, American innovation is thriving—and not in spite of patents but because of them.

David J. Kappos - Fortune

Software Patent “Rant” Misses The Point

"Another day, another uniformed rant about the evils of “software patents.” The author quickly demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the nature of NPE patent litigation[...] Examining this sentence by sentence, it’s easy to demonstrate what’s wrong here"

Patrick Anderson, the author of this blog takes a paragraph by a software patent opponent and deconstructs it sentence by sentence rebutting each point as he goes.

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