Stop Blaming Trolls for the Patent Problem
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/03/stop-blaming-the-trolls-or-we-wont-be-able-to-fix-the-patent-system/
I talked about my ideas for patent reform before, but didn’t mention so-called patent trolls. Generally speaking (to me) these ‘trolls’ are not really gaming the system but are doing what the system has been designed to do. Just because Apple is an actual product company with employees other than patent lawyers doesn’t mean they are not abusing the system (as mentioned in my earlier link, patents were originally intended to foster innovation, not act as roadblocks). Companies that exist only to prosecute infringers of their intellectual property might be annoying and inconvenient, but by the same token companies making a profit by infringing on patents are also gaming the system. Our system is truly dysfunctional, but doing something specific about ‘trolls’ without also addressing the anti competitive behavior of companies like Apple (SHIELD act) is nothing more than a potentially massive gift to the infringers of the world and yet another (shocking, I know) stab in the back of the little guy.
