The good news for those who were otherwise disappointed in the Supreme Court's recent upholding of process patents in the Bilski case: courts are using that dec

The good news for those who were otherwise disappointed in the Supreme Court's recent upholding of process patents in the Bilski case: courts are using that decision to be more vigilant in striking down more and more flaky patents on the ground that they represent nothing more than attempts to gain a monopoly on abstract ideas (for a recent discussion of this trend, see http://ipspotlight.com/2010/08/19/district-court-rules-internet-advertising-patent-invalid-under-bilski/ http://ipspotlight.com/2010/08/19/district-court-rules-inter...). This gives hope that companies like Novartis, who have chosen to fight (and particularly to be proactive in launching the fight in Delaware as opposed to getting sucked into the Eastern District of Texas), may be well-positioned to get this sort of patent invalidated. The bad news: Litigation abuses are today all too common and these are not likely to go away any time soon. In this sense, modern litigation actively encourages many forms of shake-down lawsuits, as every public company is painfully aware and as even many startups discover to their dismay as they begin to grow into larger ventures. Patent trolling is a particularly malevolent form of this vice and certainly makes you want to scream and, indeed, hope that some form cosmic justice will one day punish those who practice that particular art.