Interesting concept to fix our broken patent system that probably won't happen 12/05/2013 - 00:00 In June, in a White House blog post titled “Taking on Patent Trolls to Protect American Innovation,” Gene Sperling, assistant to the president for economic policy and director of the National Economic Council, warned: “In recent years, there has been an explosion of abusive patent litigation designed not to reward innovation and enforce intellectual property, but to threaten companies in order to extract settlements based on questionable claims.” From 2007 to 2011 the number of firms sued for patent infringement more than doubled, and in 2011 patent trolls cost defendants $29 billion in out-of-pocket legal costs and payments to settle the lawsuits.
