Stephen Downes

Article that highlights the issues caused by the current patent system. The core of the article identifies four areas of fuzziness: patent claims are hard to interpret, the can be hidden, can be issued without an actual invention, and are flooding the marketplace. It's virtually impossible to avoid infringing on a patent these days - or at least, to be accused of an infringement - and so the cost of patent litigation is essentially a tax that has been imposed by lawyers on innovators. Also from the same issue: Bringing Peer Review to Patents, by Mario Biagioli; Issues in IP Management to Support Open Access in Collaborative Innovation Models, by Sara Boettiger; and Intellectual Property and Cyberinfrastructure, by Dan L. Burk.