http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_4_patents.html

Quote:Patent trolls have become so controversial that Vermont senator Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee that held the December hearing, observed, “You don’t have to be a patent expert to know what is going on. I mean, this is as close to robbery as you can think of.” Leahy promised action on a bill to end some of the abuses that Dwyer described, but barely five months later, the senator deep-sixed his own legislation, despite bipartisan support for it. Reportedly, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rejected the Leahy bill because of intense opposition from the powerful trial lawyers’ lobby.

In fact, the opposition ran deeper than the trial bar, threatening future patent reform. Flaws in our patent system, which the distinguished appellate judge and law professor Richard Posner dubs “dysfunctional,” have transformed the technology market, making ceaseless litigation lucrative not only for Automated and patent trolls like it, but for others, too. The winners include universities, which increasingly sell otherwise unmarketable patents to shake-down trolls; established companies, which launch patent suits to hamstring competitors; and, of course, the lawyers. The losers: innovation and the American economy.

Hmm, didn't someone on this board once insist that Dems cared about the little guy?

Very much related

http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2014/12/17...start-ups/

Quote:Do Tell: ‘Some Economists See a Link Between the Scarcity of Start-Ups and the Rise in Influence-Peddling’

Yes, 'Influence Peddling' that hallmark of the left that keeps the little guy down.

Cliff notes:

In July 2014, some 18 months after it had filed suit, Personal Audio offered to drop the case against Carolla, after learning that the comedian didn’t make enough money from podcasting to justify the $3 million fee it had demanded. But a defendant should not have to raise half a million dollars for legal fees before a plaintiff realizes that he isn’t worth suing. Our patent court system and the judges who supervise it let defendants get caught in this expensive process, known as discovery, in which a plaintiff can demand voluminous documents, at little cost to itself, from a defendant, which accumulates big legal bills trying to comply before a case even comes to trial. Patent trolls depend on the burdensome process to scare firms into paying them licensing fees instead—because, as Carolla’s case shows, even victory can become massively expensive.