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Who Helped Kill Patent Troll Reform In the Senate
First time accepted submitter VT-802-Software (3663479) writes "A bipartisan proposal to curb patent trolls was shelved by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Wednesday. 'Supporters of the compromise accuse trial lawyers, universities, pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies for foiling the plan at the eleventh hour. As late as Tuesday, the University of Vermont and a biotech coalition each sent letters to Leahy opposing the legislation. "We believe the measures in the legislation go far beyond what is necessary or desirable to combat abusive patent litigation, and would do serious damage to the patent system," reads one of the letters. "Many of the provisions would have the effect of treating every patent holder as a patent troll."'"
"Many of the provisions would have the effect of treating every patent holder as a patent troll."'"
Oh but when it comes to regular citizen being treated like suspects because of a few rotten apples then thats ok but forbid this would happen to big money holders.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
It does not matter who stepped up to the plate this particular time.
Your system of government is corrupt and out of control.
Asking for names is not seeing the forest for the trees.
As long as lawyers are the majority of legislators you'll never see real patent *or* torte reform. End of story.
"Many of the provisions would have the effect of treating every patent holder as a POTENTIAL patent troll." -Fixed that for you
You seem to be trying to imply that Patrick Leahy is to blame for the failure of this legislation. In fact, the article is saying that he was the champion of this effort but has been forced to shelve the bill thanks to lobbying. If anything, the D next to his name makes the Democrats look good, not the other way around.
As opposed to what? Some Scientologist teatard? No thanks.
No. As opposed to Alex Miller, Eduardo Hamilton, or Carlo Poliak
I must say, though, it was quite amusing that "None of these" got 10% of the vote.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Supporters of the compromise accuse trial lawyers, universities, pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies for foiling the plan at the eleventh hour.
Lawyers? They suck. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies? Boo! Universities? Horr- wait, what?
If universities are opposed to the law, then that means that it probably defines "troll" as any non-practicing entity or those who make their income from licensing and litigation rather than sale of products, and therefore implicates research universities like MIT, Johns Hopkins, and Cornell. And yeah, if the law is going to force them to abandon some of their research efforts, then it's a bad law. Patent trolls are a problem, but they need a targeted solution, not one that will damage an entire R&D industry.
For example, one of the big troll-y issues was suing tons of unrelated defendants in a single suit - like Microsoft in Seattle, and Google in Mountain View, and Apple in Cupertino, and Joe Shmoe Consumer in Florida... They had no interest in Joe, he only bought a single product that was alleged to infringe, but by including him, they could argue that Texas was halfway between everyone, so it was a good venue, rather than, say, Northern California. So, in the America Invents Act, they changed the joinder rules and said you could only include multiple defendants if they were explicitly working together to infringe, like subsidiaries or agent/principal relationships. Poof, overnight, Joe stopped getting sued. Good solution: targets the problem perfectly, doesn't harm legitimate inventors.
SImple. There's a D by his name. All D's are victims when their actions don't jibe with the predominant Millennial view of them being the fearless, freedom-loving, progressive warriors for social justice.
Our founders VERY EXPLICITLY did NOT create a Democracy (some of the most-famous like Adams and Franklin cautioned strongly against it). They created a "Constitutional Republic" with "Democratic elections" - Which means we have democratically-elected representatives AND a constitution that protects the political minority from the acts of the political majority (something NOT done in a "Democracy") no matter how much the majority wants to do those acts and votes for them. Our founders warned against forming a Democracy, in part, because all Democracies eventually devolve into tyranny-of-the-majority, financial insolvency, and collapse.
The bigger and more-invasive our government gets, the more it gets into every single aspect of our lives... and the more like a Democracy it becomes, the more it disregards the political minority and FORCES the will of the majority onto them - this can only end in one of two ways: [1] stepping back from this path or [2] a very bloody civil war. It's a sheer flight of fantasy to presume that a huge segment of the nation will simply abandon all its principles and beliefs and allow the majority to dominate (because unlike the first civil war which was over the singular immoral act of slavery - opposed even by half the founders, and designed by the founders to eventually dissappear, this rising national Democracy in the US eventually will force every political minority to cave to the will of the majority on all aspects of life)
Oh, and before some idiot posts links to famous politicians on both sides of the aisle praising "democracy", be fore-warned that those of us who are educated know you are going out-of-context - It was the tradition in the West, particularly during WWII and the Cold War to refer to "representative governments where individual citizens have the right to vote and freely express their opinions" as "democracies" (in contrast to the various forms of oppressive regimes around the globe) as a form of verbal short-hand.
Microsoft Word is more expensive than an impulse buy. Is the grammar checker in any of the free software competitors to Word any good? And if so, which?