It’s been another bad week for America’s benighted patent system: a Texas jury ordered Samsung to pay a patent troll $16 million for using Bluetooth — even though the “inventor” admitted Bluetooth had been on the market for years before he patented it. The system is a mockery.
Still, its defenders say, the system is working because it facilitates “tech transfer” and the passing of critical knowledge from inventors to companies. But now even that justification is collapsing in light of a new study that suggests patent licensing often does nothing at all to promote research or new products.
