[pwg]

From the article:

>At a hearing in March, Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) worried that without a proper definition, lawmakers will "impact adversely a bunch of people we should not be impacting." Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) warned that legislation targeting patent trolls could open the door to deny plaintiffs "their right to go to court in other tort situations."

It is interesting they "see" the problems with overlay broad statutes here, but with items such as the CFAA/SOPA/PIPA they fail to see just how overly broad a statute they have created/proposed.

[maresca]

They aren't failing to see what they've created with CFAA/SOPA/PIPA. They know exactly what they're doing and occasionally feigning ignorance.

[anonymousab]

To a politician, problems are seen in light of helping their most valuable constituents (MPAA, Apple/MS/Google, etc.) and themselves.

[rayiner]

That argument makes no sense. Patent trolls aren't a valuable constituency. Apple, MS, and Google are.

[chongli]

Apple's done plenty of patent trolling of their own. Remember the rounded rectangle fiasco?

That's all beside the point. If patents are reformed so that only big corporations like Apple can use them to attack their competitors, what really will have changed? Sure, the swarm of bees (NPEs) might be gone but we'll still have to deal with the angry bear. And what of small inventors without the means to capitalize on their innovations? What will protect them if their legal power to enforce licensing deals is removed?

[tptacek]

In the common definition, "patent trolls" are nonpracticing entities.