Founders’ Vision of Patent Rights Fading, Fed. Cir. Judge Says

The U.S. has lost sight of the founders’ vision of patent rights, and the long-term implications “could be severe,” Federal Circuit Judge Kathleen M. O’Malley said in a speech Thursday.

The Patent Act—one of the first acts of the first Congress—"deliberately and quite consciously created what we now call non-practicing entities to expand the pool of inventors in our then-backward economy to include ordinary citizens without the wealth or resources to commercialize their own inventions,” O’Malley said at a lecture presented virtually by William and Mary Law School.

But the early successes of the U.S. patent system have waned in ...