Joel on Software: Victory Lap for Ask Patents

Joel is dead on right. If you can catch a patent before it issues, killing it isn't too hard.

The problem is the ones that issue. Then it gets damned expensive to kill them. The law states that an issued patent is regarded as solid. In theory an issued patent should be solid. But the USPTO (and the other national patent offices) aren't competent to evaluate patents.

If that sounds nasty, consider the number of bad issued patents we've seen.

Wayne
madhatter.ca