Summary: Politicians are willing to approve changes to law which further empower large corporations that are funding politicians like themselves

IT IS hard to feel excited about the PATENT Act, which we wrote about before [1, 2, 3]. It's just that it doesn't matter much for the large majority of the population. It is a bogus 'reform' for corporations' sake, as one can rather easily see.

"Not only patent trolls are the problem."Over the past 24 hours a lot of people wrote about the PATENT Act because an important step was looming. Articles like "PATENT Act puts trolls in their place" or "PATENT Act is a bridge over patent trolls" sought to push the piece of legislation forward. There are other points of view, which may also be legitimate, such as "Patent legislation will destroy inventive small businesses" (not that small businesses should ever rely on patents in their strategy). "Congress Should Address Patent Trolls," wrote one person, noting:

Actually, aside from the filing the lawsuit part, none of that is true. It would be if Congress passed the PATENT Act, legislation from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., that seeks to limit patent trolling and bring some order and predictability to the patent enforcement process.

But the problem is far broader than that. Not only patent trolls are the problem. They are more of a symptom of the real problem.

"As long as Senate or Congress are so heavily dependent on corporations for funding of their members not much will change, except in favour of the rich and powerful."We now know that the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the PATENT Act [1, 2, 3], but don't waste time celebrating or following the PATENT Act too closely. It is not a reform for people, only for large companies, much like previous so-called 'reforms'.

There is a new article titled "No, the America Invents Act did not cost ‘the economy’ $1 trillion" and it says that "some are still litigating the merits of the last significant patent reform Congress passed, 2011’s American Invents Act. Of particular interest, in some quarters of the intellectual property world, are its provisions expanding the inter partes review procedure, which has allowed many more entities to challenge the validity of patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office."

As long as Senate or Congress are so heavily dependent on corporations for funding of their members not much will change, except in favour of the rich and powerful. We have not yet seen any real reform in the making. No politician is even proposing such a reform. ⬆