An interesting column in the New York Times caught my eye (the article can be found here). Posner, a je udge for thUS Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for nearly three decades, has volunteered his time to sit in patent litigation trials on order to learn how to rectify the existing messy system. The article uses words such as "desperate," "time-consuming," and "prideful" to describe the need for a new process.
The existing patent system at the USPTO is, according to the article, understaffed yet overwhelmed with needless patent filings. There exists such a thing as "patent trolls" who spend their time creating patent portfolio in order to extort fees from companies that use the idea behind the patent. Billions of dollars have gone in litigation cases over patents, of which the one in the spotlight as of late seems to be Google's $12.5 billion dollar spend on Motorola Mobility to get their hands on the patents.
There is often the argument that patents protect innovation, and a clear example of it may be in the pharmaceutical industry in which firms are forced to develop better and more effective ways to solving the same problems. In the technology industry on the other hand, products are short-lived and there is the idea that you can let others develop the technology first. For technology giants, this means to sit aside and watch the little guys come up with the brilliant ideas, then to use their excess cash flow to buy out the small guys to scale the technology.
It's a clever tactic, but is it a sustainable strategy, and does it hinder innovation?
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