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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/05/innovatio_could_be_stymied_by_aia/ I just saw an interesting article about the attempt to sue people for using Wi-Fi. It seems that some good may have actually come out of recent changes in US patent legislation (America Invents Act). It has become more difficult to lump alleged patent violators into a single lawsuit. This means the cost for patent trolls will go up. The result is that any attempt to enforce patents against individual users may be economically infeasible in the US. Organizations will still be good targets, but even here the article highlights some of the difficulties that might be involved. I have to say that I'm not completely positive about this. I would have preferred that bad patents/software patents be eliminated not just routinely violated. After watching the recent PBS documentary series on Prohibition and the consequences of laws that everyone ignores, I can't see such a state of affairs as positive. (Not that I think we are going to have bootleg software vendors shooting it out on the streets of Chicago.) On a more long term basis, the effects of widespread access to 3D printers to patent enforcement could be "interesting". If I remember my history, Eli Whitney had difficultly enforcing his patent for the cotton gin against cotton growers at least partly because it was just too easy for people to make their own. In some sense, I believe that was part of RMS' argument against software patents. Coming up with ideas is often not the hard part of developing software "objects". The hard part is getting all the implementation details right so it actually works. With physical "objects", the difficulties of manufacturing have formed an inherent barrier to violating patents by individuals. 3D printers will lower that barrier for certain classes of physical "objects" and may have similar results to what cheap digital copying did to music. I'm sure society will eventually be forced to adapt to the new realities, but before that happens the organizations that currently benefit will do everything in their power to maintain the status quo. I wouldn't be surprised to see more enforcement against smaller organizations and lobbying to increase criminal penalties for patent violators. Bill Bogstad
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