Here is a new one-investing or rather, joint venturing, in patent trolls link here. DeepNines is suing McAfee over a patent covering "combining an IDS and firewall in a single device", whatever that is. DeepNines is capitalized by a zero-coupon note payable to private equity Altitude Capital Partners, promising buyers a share of the payout from the suit.

Can it get any dumber?

David posted about the draft Patent Reform Act, just introduced in the Congress, as I was about to. Another source is link here with its own comments. I quote: "The provisions of the Patent Reform Act would... restrict damages that patent holders can receive for infringement lawsuits, create a new procedure to challenge the validity of a patent after it has been granted, and boost resources for the US Patent and Trademark Office."

"The corporate roster of backers includes Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, and nearly everyone else. Similar legislation failed to pass during the last session of Congress. Other groups, including the pharmaceutical industry and small inventors, have opposed major changes to the patent system."

The special interests gather at the trough. If we have to have patents, this may be a modest improvement. But don't count on it. More important, watch what gets attached to the bill as it wends it leisurely way through the legislative process and the tasty tidbits are on offer.

The big patent news this week was the patent reform bill introduced in Congress

"balance" awards for damages, limiting them to only economic value of the improvement; establish fair standards for punitive damages; restrict forum shopping, and improve patent quality. In addition, the bill would create a "first-to-file" system

Any bill sponsored by Orrin Hatch can't be all good, and my preliminary reading of this is that it reinforces why I am skeptical about patent reform. Pretty much every item favor the large corporate inventor over the small independent inventor. This has a good side, since a lot of small independent inventors are more like blackmail artists than inventors, but the bill seems one-sided doing nothing to reign in the monopoly power the large corporations get from their patent portfolios. I'd rather both sides agree to an armistice - no more patents.

Perhaps others have known about this already, but I only just now came across a very valuable tool from Google that allows you to do searches on patent information.

Now many people will be able to see just how ridiculous our current patent system has become.

For instance, try searching the term "underwear" and start reading what passes for new innovative inventions that are supposedly worthy of monopolies under our laws...