13 January 2008

This Congress Might Get Something Right?!?

Patent reform is working it's way through Congress, and it seems as if they might actually pass some sensible reform that will help kill the anti-competitive and anti-innovation lawsuits that have plagued the tech sector over the past decade or so.

The NYT paints this as the big guys trying to pull one over on the little guys, but that hasn't been what's happened lately, instead it's predatory lawyers and petty trolls finding obscure patents and extorting money by shopping for favorable jurisdictions and finding judges that don't understand tech to give outrageous dollar settlements.

If this law goes through, it will be great for consumers and great for inventors, right now corporations can't look out side of their own R&D divisions for tech, for fear of being hit by a suit later on, if that fear is reduced, rather than giving them an excuse to screw the little guy, it will give them a way to bring the little guy in and combine resources.

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