It seems every day I read about another law suit filed by a shell company who has licensed patents from inventors with no other purpose but to sue companies. They can sue with essentially no risk to themselves but even if the patent turns out to be invalid or the company is found not to infringe the costs to the defendant can be crippling. The patent office has many flaws as far as I can see. They approve too many patents that are too close to one another and they take far too long to act in their supposed effort to protect industries that come and go in that same time span. It seems there is more incentive to file hundreds of patents and put together a company of lawyers to sit back and sue companies who are actually trying to bring products and services to market. We need patent reform as start-ups, the companies that are supposed to be protected under this system are the ones being hurt. It has to stop as its not good for the economy when only lawyers make money.

Adding on4/4/2011…well played by Google

Official Google Blog: Patents and innovation