I wonder how much of Obama's motivation comes from Microsoft and Apple starting to run into problems in places like the EU and China over the very patent quagmire they themselves helped create?
Now that major American business interests are starting to get hurt I guess there will finally be
some action taken. Unfortunately, one of the qualifying points that makes one not a troll is if there is already an ongoing business and manufactured product to go with the patent being asserted. That condition could leave all the small startups and kickstarters twisting in the wind if they try to enforce their patents against one of the big companies.
I think this is ultimately going to mostly benefit the large established businesses which are patent holders and hang all the small innovators and new businesses out to dry. I'd like to hope this isn't really all a plan to shut out new claimants and hand the field over to big business. But I've been around long enough not to have much hope for that.
I'm guessing whatever gets done will likely benefit everybody at first. But afterwards, certain clauses and interpretations will inevitably pull the rug out from under all but the biggest corporations when it comes to patent protection.
