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What about legitimate inventors, rather than patent trolls? There is a large element of uncertainty in any patent suit that has a trial by jury, and it is not at all uncommon for clearly legitimate patents to be found invalid by the jury.

The SHIELD Act sounds like it would make it effectively impossible for any small inventor who is not wealthy to sue a large infringer, because the risk of total ruin would be too high.

The way to address the patent troll problem is to address the ACTUAL cause of the problem (standards for issuing patents are too lax).



> The SHIELD Act sounds like it would make it effectively impossible for any small inventor who is not wealthy to sue a large infringer, because the risk of total ruin would be too high.

Worse. It would make it effectively impossible for anyone who isn't wealthy to sue anyone or any company that is. At a minimum, those pesky environmental laws would no longer be a concern.


I refer you to a recent post of mine on the obviousness test: https://hackernews.hn/item?id=4523706




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