The patent system is in dire trouble, apparently

Selected excerpts from the most recent edition of Landslide, the ABA Intellectual Property Section’s flagship publication, and the articles and authors from which they are lifted:

[W]hen you start a business as an entrepreneur or inventor, it’s all about managing a relationship between risk and reward. There’s obviously a huge amount of risk and uncertainty in starting a company or developing a product. But the reward, the ability to get a patent …, is the reason why entrepreneurs and investors are willing to assume that risk. With a strong patent system, there’s greater certainty that a patent is going to issue and then that patent is going to kind of stand the test of time …. When the patent system is tested and challenged and when there’s uncertainty as to the validity of a patent, that’s what messes up the formula. ….

An Interview with Louis Foreman, Founder and Chief Executive of Eventys
By Eli Mazour

The legislation and policies … over the past decade ultimately have destabilized the reliable and effective patent rights that have served as the key platforms for inventors to create .... The patent system has brought us smartphones, treatments for cancer, and antiviral medicines that address a scourge of humanity for thousands of years, among many others. Whether this essential platform for innovation continues to promote the next generate of high-tech inventions and biopharmaceutical discoveries is currently in doubt.

Uncertain Patent Rights and a Weakening US Innovation Economy
By Adam Mossoff

In the current environment of diminished patent strength where efficient infringement has become common and patents are often ignored, we face the most significant threat to the future of open innovation we have yet confronted.

The End of Collaborative Innovation: Is the Erosion of Patent Rights Threatening Open Innovation?
By Marc Ehrlich and Richard Ludwin

US Patent 10,000,000 issued on June 19 …. Since 1961, each successive groups of a million patents has taken less time to complete. Most recently, patents nine million through 10 million issued over the course of only three years. At that rate, on a power-series trend, US Patent 100,000,000 will issue on May 3, 2081.
 
But what if—as people say—the pace of innovation really is exponentially increasing? An exponential trend would mark September 5, 2024 in history as the date the USPTO issued US Patents 43,000,000 to 100,000,000 on a single day!
…
In order to manage September 5, 2024, the USPTO would need over 530 million examiners on staff ….

Apocalypse Soon: US Patent 100 Million is Coming
By Christoper White