In an article entitled “Could Morse Have Patented the Web? Under today’s loose standards, the telegraph inventor might own the Internet” , dated March 26, 2012, the Wall Street Journal demonstrates their incredible ignorance of patent law. The article states, “The standards for patents are so low that simply having an idea often justifies a patent.” Obtaining a patent takes at least several years to obtain and tens of thousands of dollars. It is the most expensive, time consuming, and most examined property right before you obtain title of all property rights. In addition, when Morse obtained his patent the requirement that a patent
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The Senate passed the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act, H.R. 3606 and President Obama is likely to sign it. The goal of the legislation is to reduce some of the regulatory burdens in raising capital for startups. The Act exempts small firms from Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for up to five years according to Wikipedia. It also includes some of the crowdfunding ideas of HR 2930. This legislation is a positive step in the right direction. Unfortunately, it is a 
pebble in Sea of laws, regulations, and taxes strangling technology startups in the US. My guess is that
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The Supreme Court ruling in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Labs., Inc. (Supreme Court 2012) was released on March 20, 2012 and they held unanimously against Prometheus and invalidated two patents under 35 USC 101. My title may be a bit salacious, since the holding in the case does not limit patents to just black magic, it limits them to magic. The holding on p. 4 states:
The steps in the claimed processes (apart from the natural laws themselves) involve well-understood, routine, conventional activity previously engaged in by researchers in the field. P. 4
And adds:
The three steps (of the claim) as an ordered combination adds nothing to the laws of nature that is not already present when the steps are considered separately. P. 10
Logically, the Supreme Court is saying that known
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While the US continues to weaken its patent laws, Singapore is taking a different path. Singapore has just announced that it is developing a plan to be an Intellectual Property Hub, according to Channelnewsasia.com. They believe that intellectual property is a key part of the global economy and they want their country to be primed to take advantage of this trend. According to the article:
With well-developed legal and financial systems and a workforce comfortable with science and technology, Singapore is poised to ride on this trend. Still, the country has a small domestic market, but Singapore can get around this by becoming Asia’s IP Hub.
I often hear something like ‘only 2% of patents every pay off’ or are commercialized. This comment is quoted as if it is gospel and often is said in a snide or cynical way. This comment came to my mind as I was preparing a list of patents and associated products for one of my clients. This client has seven or eight patents and every single patent covers a product my client is producing and selling. While I certainly have clients that have filed for patents that are not licensed or being practiced, these are the exception not the rule. The economist Jacob Schmookler in his 1966 book Invention and Economic Growth, investigates this issue and his survey showed that over 50% of patents are commercialized. 
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Forbes magazine has an excellent article that provides the real facts behind the so called patent litigation explosion entitled “No, the Patent System Is Not Broken.” The article explains:
“The truth is that today’s patent litigation rate is less than half what it was in the mid-nineteenth century, a period widely recognized as the golden age of American innovation.”
The article puts today’s patent litigation
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The bill H.R. 3059, titled the “Promoting Automotive Repair, Trade, and Sales” (PARTS) Act claims to reduce the cost of automotive repairs by limiting design patents for automotive parts to 30 months. This bill pits automobile manufacturers against insurance companies and consumer groups. The argument for the bill is that it would reduce the cost of automotive repairs. As I understand it if your car is in an accident and for instance your headlight is damaged it is 
likely that if your car is relatively new the headlamp is covered by a design patent. As a result, when you go to replace the headlamp you either have to buy it from an OEM manufacturer or from someone
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The America Invents Act (AIA) has changed the rules for marking products with patents. The law allows you to “mark” you product by providing a website that explains which patents cover which products. This is a positive step to move the patent system into the 21st century.
The reason for marking you product with a patent number is that it provides “constructive notice” to infringers of your patent. Damages for patent infringement accrue from the date of actual or constructive notice to the infringer. As a result, the damages you may recover will be larger the sooner an infringer is deemed to have notice of your patent.
From a practical
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The CATO Institute are reiterating the findings of the flawed paper The Private and Social Costs of Patent Trolls , Boston University School of Law Working Paper No. 11-45, by James E. Bessen, Michael J. Meurer, and Jennifer Laurissa Ford. This paper looks at lawsuits filed by NPE (Non-Practicing Entities) and the subsequent drop in the stock price of the company being sued. The paper suggests that this loss of wealth is all “deadweight” loss, since little of the money ends up with the original inventors of the technology. This last part is an intellectually dishonest slight of hand. The authors
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The arrest of Kim Dotcom and the raiding of Megaupload plays into the SOPA & PIPA argument about stopping online piracy. Goggle & Wikipedia just did a blackout to protest these pieces of legislation. The problem with this whole area of legislation is that it is dominated by special interests instead of based on fundamental understandings of property rights and the due procedure. The two groups doing battle are Hollywood and the content providers against Google/Wikipedia and the free internet nuts. The legislation was written by Hollywood and basically allows the government to take down a website without any due process. It allows “in rem” suits in which
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