According to the latest, U.S. Congress not only intends to fix the broken patent system, but also makes "small steps" towards the goal.

The U.S. Congress took a small step on Wednesday toward revising what many large computer industry companies charge is a broken patent system.

Wired Magazine weighs and and suggests ways to resolve USPTO issues once and for all.

Even before Microsoft announced that open-source software collectively infringes on 235 Microsoft patents -- Linux alone allegedly trespassing on 42 of them -- it was clear that the U.S. patent system is broken. A system that was created to protect invention has warped into a heavy drag on innovation in America.

An open letter in LXer requests that Novell sidles with the Free software community (for a change) and actually assists in debunking Microsoft's bluff.

I call on you, Novell, to tell the community which patents Microsoft thinks are infringed by the GNU/Linux operating system. You know the patent numbers. Microsoft gave them to you. Now release them so we all can publicly prove what you claim: That GNU/Linux infringes no Microsoft patents. If you do, then you may gain back some of the credibility in the community that you lost when you signed the cross-license deal with Microsoft last year.