Bum Year For Patents

The past year wasn’t a great one for patents, argues Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy Director Larry Downes. Congress stalled on patent reform, the Supreme Court denied hearings to cases that could have made significant inroads against trolls, and the USPTO’s “patent quality” initiative is “mere window dressing,” Downes says. To highlight a rotten year, the Washington Post collected four of the worst patents filed, as recommended by Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney, and holder of the Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents, Daniel Nazer. “Each one highlights a different crisis in our badly-misaligned patent system,” Downes says.