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Has the patent system really weakend ? or it's simply that today, the options to build something are so varied, and people have more knowledge of that, so you c

• Animats 10y ago
  At least three things made it much more expensive to enforce a patent: 1. The America Invents Act (2011), with its new post-grant review provisions. Now, if you try to enforce a patent, the infringer can tie you up for a few years with review proceedings, which means the inventor has to spend money to defend the patent. 2. The eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. decision (2006), which made patent infringement injunctions much harder to get. This decision basically means that the worst thing that can happen to an infringer is that someday they have to pay royalties. It's essentially compulsory licensing of patents. So infringers have no incentive to negotiate. 3. The In re Seagate Tech decision (2007) and some related decisions changed the standard for willful infringement (and triple damages) to include a requirement of "reckless disregard", which is almost impossible to prove. These decisions also reduced the power of juries in patent cases. It's also harder to get discovery in patent cases now, which means that if infringement can be kept a secret, it's usually possible to get away with it.