When Good Patents Go Bad

will writes "The Washington Post has a good review of patents in the information age. The insanity of the US patent system has been chronicled on this site numerous times in the past (for example, an FTC report on patent policy, some patents for obvious applications such as Microsoft patenting local weather, and Amazon patenting inside book searching). The Washington Post article does a good job of overviewing IP issues today, why the current US patent systems fails in the information age, and gives an example of patent extortion. Excuse me while I patent my DNA."

Comments

Patent on patents?

[kveton]

Seems like you could extort a great deal out of the US Patent Office if you owned the patent on patents.

Yeah, yeah ... not likely but its a friggin' joke ... gimme a break.