[taligent]

That's nice in theory. In the "real world" it would never work.

The patent office would be too scared to actually award patents and even if they did the due diligence they would do would take ages. During which time copycats could come in and copy the invention. You may as well abolish patents altogether.

A better solution is to punish those companies who are defeated at trial and then strip them of the patents to prevent future lawsuits.

[gsb]

You may be right about the patent office, and that would be OK by me. But for those who say that only some patents are a problem, it leaves open a nice incentive to make that distinction real. All it means is that the USPTO suffer for their own errors of judgement rather that foisting that suffering onto others.

If instead you punish those defeated at trial, there are many who say that this is unfair to small players who cannot afford to make as strong a case as the really rich companies. I personally don't see this as such a great problem as they should be doing something more constructive than filing lawsuits, but I think holding the patent office accountable does not favour large players to the same degree.

[reitzensteinm]

If your patent were granted, you'd still retroactively be covered from the date of filing. Go back and sue the copycats.

Your "real world" solution does nothing. Patent trolls are rapidly becoming the worst part of the current system. They have no assets, and a handful of patents.

What penalties, exactly, can you impose on a shell company with no assets?

gsb's proposed solution may not be perfect, but it's clearly superior to the mess we have now.