I still it is an important question. Despite your cynicism.

[Why not have a script that just cynically comments 'I am so clever I have seen it all before' on every article.]

What about the GamePark holdings' handhelds? They run lots of cool stuff.

Why buy a device that you cannot control? If I buy a device I expect to be root by default, not to have to jailbreak through some random PDF exploit. iPhone turns its users into digital serfs.

Well I see no reason why selling a software patent removes liability (in the eyes of my hypothetical version of the European Commission). The European Commission (EC) would want to decide for itself whether the transfer of a software patent was performed in good faith or not. I.e. when you sell a software patent, the liability may not transfer in the eyes of the EC.

So for example, Dow Jones software company A, patents a software idea. They then grant themselves an eternal licence to use the idea and then sell the patent (i.e. the enforcement rights) to patent pool B. B then sues European-based company C.

C goes to the European Commission and asks for the refund. The EC then sues both B and A for the money.

Most software patents are developed within a context of software development. It is the fact that they are resold that creates the patent trolls. However, the patent still has the original company's name on it.

Sometimes getting the money will be difficult, but if it is a software patent that is generating income, there is usually a link somewhere.

In other cases, none of above stops the EC on behalf of A, from trying to prove that the patent is invalid within the US system.

Lastly because the EC is imposing punitive damages above the original damages awarded in the US, there should be enough profit in the pool from the successes to take a hit on the failures.

Easy way to sort that, make patents only for real substantial inventions. Not for abstract ideas or for incremental changes that can be implemented by anyone versed in the state of the art.

So you get a patent for inventing the first steam engine. You don't get a patent increasing that efficiency of a steam engine by 1%, or for controlling a steam engine using software.

It is the US' nonsense software patent system that is the bureaucracy. I am simply suggesting that the European Commission mitigate the US' bureaucracy so that software companies can compete in the free market.

It is not about whether one wants to comply with the laws of the US. I was suggesting that the hypothetical company pays the damages and so does comply with the law.

It is about fairness. The EU allows American software firms to sell and distribute their software in the EU. The American firms compete based on the merits of their products.

This needs to be a two way street. The US government grants exclusive monopolies on abstract ideas that are just part of the known Universe. This is unfair competition on countries.

EU firms (and others) cannot compete on the merits of their products in the US if they risk frivolous and expensive lawsuits based on these nonsense software patents. My suggested unfair competition law would mitigate this risk. The European Commission would 'insure' this by providing a European based way to get the money back.

I am suggesting that we should have fair competition between countries, where we compete on the merits of the products.

The US federal government's way is to game the system. So it is based on who has the most slippery lawyers and bureaucrats. Like the World Series of Baseball that only has the US competing. Federal and legal monarchy instead of a free market.

Injunction against who? The European Commission? What does it care about doing business in the US?

True, but patent trolls are only part of the story. Big US-based proprietary software companies are pilling up the software patents.

My suggestion is about making the American system a problem for Americans, and removing EU companies from this unfair competition.

Well that is a real threat. The solution of course is to bin the WTO, and all the crazy US laws it dumps on everyone (software patents, anti-filesharing, private health care, etc).

I have long thought about this. I live in the EU, and the software patents are not valid (but they sometimes grant them anyway). I would make an unfair competition law to prevent foreign governments using their patent systems to stymie EU-based software firms.

The way it would work is as follows, an EU firm creates a program and sells or gives it away in the US (or other country with nonsense software patent systems). A US company sues for patent infringement damages in US court. The EU company pays but takes the receipt back to the EU.

The EU software firm then hands the receipt to the European Commission who then sues the US company under my new unfair-competition law. The European Commission recovers the damages back and hands them back to the EU software firm. The European Commission charges punitive damages above the initial amount which it pockets itself to cover its own costs (or even make a profit).

The European Commission could make the process so easy that the EU-based software firm just carries on with making software and competing on the merits of the software.

If the New Zealand government manages to get the bill enacted without bowing to pressure from foreign patent trolls, then New Zealand will be a safe habour for genuine software firms wanting to get on with developing software. If the New Zealand Software Industry now booms, hopefully other regulators will take note.

Historians will look back and see patent trolling as one of those mad schemes of the first decade of the 21st Century, alongside subprime mortgages, leveraged investment vehicles and so on.

Indeed it sounds like the worst of Microsoft's past:

"skillful use of network effects"

Sounds like the fast track to an EU competition commission prosecution.