(via John Bennett) An article in the New York Times about the patent reform act before Congress. It is held up in a dispute over whether the owner of a patent of a small piece of a product gets to hold up the entire product for blackmail. Not that you would think eliminating this type of blackmail would be controversial...You know, if even the Commerce Secretary realizes the system is broken it probably is. Still Pozen has a point - while it would be best to eliminate the entire awful system, the trivial reforms that are proposed will be a mild improvement. The main problem I suppose, is that the improvement will only be mild, and everyone will be busy congratulating themselves about how they fixed it.

http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?WO=2009126806 alvah wickboldt patent

http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?WO=2009126806 alvah wickboldt patent