All too often I’m reminded that today’s American patent system is more droit du USPTO than it is the system for the innovative masses as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson and other of our Founding Fathers. It costs thousands of dollars to obtain a patent. It costs millions to defend that patent against an infringer. Yet insidious narratives on “patent trolls” continue to echo in the rank and file at Congress as if infringement suits brought by tech licensing companies is somehow a new phenomenon and not a system which turned Thomas Alva Edison and Alexander Graham Bell into storied heroes of American innovation. Today’s Standard Oils, the Alphabets and Apples of the world, have mounted an impressive smear campaign that has whipped up a debate which is completely out of proportion with the real problem at hand. For every MPHJ Technologies, there are a thousand Smartflashes, companies who had good ideas stolen and have a rightful case of infringement to take to district court. For every Jay Mac Rust, there are countless Josh Malones: good, decent, forthright individuals who believed in a good idea, took a leap of faith, and are worse off for it. They are worse off for having invested in the patent system in the first place even as their invention is proven valuable by the activities of infringers.
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