Constituency problem (Score 1)

In a way, the litigation mentioned in the article is a good thing. A big problem for patent reform is that there is a small group of highly motivated people who benefit from these overbroad patents and a much larger but much more diffuse group of people who are hurt by them. The former exert continual pressure on the system and the latter don't pay much attention -- you see this in firearms politics, where for better or worse a large majority of the country thinks more legislation is needed but the majority will is thwarted (again for better or worse) by a relatively small group of dedicated opponents. (I am ignoring the constitutional arguments here, of course.) The best way to get some money and motivation behind reform is for these patents to start burning enough business interests to create the same kind of interest in this issue on the other side. If eBay, Viacom, Amazon and the like start getting hurt, maybe we'll see some action.