Liars use Statistics, but...

statistics never lie... Or so goes an old adage...

Have you ever noticed in the patent debate (patents are bad, patents are good, patent trolls are bad, etc.) that there is a stunning amount of opinion and anecdotal stories? Patents are bad because some patent troll is holding up some company with a nuisance lawsuit... Patents are good because we all know big companies will screw the little guy every chance they get... and so on...

But actual, systematic analysis of the patent system and behaviors, abuses, rewards, etc. are nowhere to be found? Does that strike anyone other than me as odd?

I would say that this emotional rant behavior is most prevalent in software patents. And, while we at EIP live in the land of physical products ("if it ain't made of atoms, we ain't interested"), much of my past life and much of the future of IP law I suspect will be driven by the digital world.

Last quarter I was have a conversation with Brad Feld about software patents, and I sent him a short memo on how I thought the time had come for the world of software patents to stand up and be measured. At EIP we love data, and we're always looking for experiments we can run to prove or disprove a hypothesis.

I won't put my whole idea down on this blog, I'll merely point to Brad's blog on it. Part 2 isn't up yet, but I'm sure it's coming soon...