Ten States Pass Anti-Patent-Troll Laws, With More To Come

An anonymous reader writes "With patent reform stalled in the Senate, many states have decided to take up the issue themselves. 'As states kicked off their legislative sessions this winter, lawmakers responded to the threats against small businesses by writing bills that would ban "bad faith patent assertions" as a violation of consumer-protection laws. The bills target a specific type of patent troll: the kind that sends out vaguely worded letters demanding licensing fees. The thousands of letters sent out by the "scanner trolls" at MPHJ Technology are often brought up as a case-in-point. The new laws allow trolls that break rules around letter-writing to be sued in state court, either by private companies they've approached for licensing fees, or by state authorities themselves.'"

Re:Like applying bandaid to a gushing wound

[eWarz]

Making 'patent law' a nightmare IS the goal behind the laws. If laws are different in every state it makes patent trolling much harder (which makes things unprofitable).

Re:Nice sentiment but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't use the term "Intellectual Property" to describe the clause of the Constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

Intellectual property is a modern day term meant to confuse the differences between copyrights, patents, and trademarks. Using a modern day corruption of the concepts to describe the initial writings further confuses the relevant issues.