Past time for meaningful patent reform

Every dollar spent litigating a silly patent, or re-examining one, is a dollar not spent inventing. The hurdles to granting valid patents have also made them into corporate weapons, when they were designed to be human rights.

Stories like this one, about an overly-broad patent on education given Blackboard, have been the norm for a decade now. Remember the claimed patent on all multimedia? Or the one on e-commerce?  Heck, Blackberry.

Patent claims should be limited to the specifics of how they do things, not to the idea of doing something. A mousetrap patent doesn't mean all mousetraps are patented. But today's software patents routinely violate the principle.

Patents should also be quickly and thoroughly investigated. That takes money. Charging applicants directly will wipe out middle-class inventors, so have the patent office take a piece of the proceeds until its bills are paid.

Patents deserve respect. But open source deserves something other than constant harassment if it's to achieve its potential as a business model.

Patent reform is a big part of the answer. Instead of just fighting pitched battles on individual patents, isn't it time groups like the Software Freedom Law Center got behind a reform proposal?