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Evaluating A Patent System Gone Awry

While brawls over Social Security and lobbying high jinks dominate the news on Capitol Hill, Congress is quietly moving on one of the technology industry’s top priorities: revamping the patent system.

As unsexy as that sounds, at stake is who gets to benefit most from innovation.

These days the patent office looks like California during the Gold Rush, with companies, universities and individuals stampeding to sew up as much "intellectual property" as fast as they can. In the information age, ideas are among the most valuable coins of the realm.

Some corporations have internal teams whose sole mission is to file for and acquire as many patents as possible. Patent examiners are overwhelmed, and are waving on patent applications — especially in technology areas — that would be called head-scratching if one were being polite.

(Here’s one: Google owns a newly minted patent for what the page of results looks like when you search for something. Specifically, if the search term that you entered comes back in bold face, like this, that method now belongs to Google.)

By Jonathan Krim

Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/04/AR2005050402140.html

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