[PLUG] THIS AMERICAN LIFE: The Patent Show

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 02:40:15PM -0700, Galen Seitz wrote:
> This weekend on OPB radio.  After the broadcast, the show should 
> become available for download from www.thisamericanlife.org.  It will 
> be interesting to hear how this subject is presented.
> 
> THIS AMERICAN LIFE: The Patent Show
> Sun, July 24, 10am. Why would a company rent an office in a tiny town 
> in East Texas, put a nameplate on the door ... and then leave it 
> completely empty for a year? The answer involves a controversial 
> billionaire physicist in Seattle, a 40-pound cookbook and a war that 
> is waging right now across the software and tech industries. This 
> American Life unpacks an amazing story of a battle over progress, 
> innovation and the U. S. Constitution.

Could somebody summarize this for me?  I have a hard time hearing,
radio shows especially.  I assume this is about Nathan Myrvold,
his company Intellectual Ventures, and the patent-troll-friendly
East Texas district of the US District Court.

This morning, I got an email from Rep. David Wu, bragging about
how he pushed H.R. 1249 through the House.  That changes the patent
system to "first to file" (European style) rather than "first to
invent".  This makes the patent system even more lawyer-centric;
it will be better to have a bad idea and good lawyers than the
reverse.  Wu was a patent lawyer, and will be again when he loses
the next election.

The obligatory rant goes here, but I have some innovation to do,
and patents just block the way.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs