"Why The Coming Patent Crisis Is Inevitable" - Ben Parr, CNET
http://news.cnet.com/8301-33617_3-57409016-276/why-the-coming-patent-crisis-is-inevitable/
Comments by the author include:
1. "It's the tech industry's version of mutually assured destruction. And all the while, the patent situation inches closer toward a crisis that will make the SOPA controversy look like a walk in the park. At some point in the future, a company is going to skip the settlement and use the courts to shut down a popular and universal feature on the Web's top domains, simply because it has a patent that says it came up with the notion first. It will be a shock that reverberates all the way to the U.S. government and the World Trade Organization."
2. But the authors goes on to say "I suspect a patent crisis is both necessary and inevitable... there isn't enough political will or pressure to institute massive patent reform without a crisis to rally around"
If anyone still doubts that this won't impact us, the author notes a dispute between Yahoo and Facebook for a patent that covers the "optimum placement of advertisements on a webpage".