14 DAY TRIAL // There was a time when earning money from intellectual property was a simple matter of filing a license with the USPTO and suing a company over infringement of it.
Things got marginally better in recent years, but not by much.
Now, though, courts are outlawing abstract patents by the dozen. While software patents aren't all gone yet, some truly bizarre ones are being disallowed.
Recently, ideas like algorithms have been ruled un-patentable.
The Washington Post reckons this has a lot to do with a Supreme Court case from 1978, between Parker and Flook.
Not every citation of that case means an invalidated patent, but it's usually a close thing. Soon, companies like Rambus will actually have to start producing things in order to stay in business.
Maybe there will even be a miracle and higher-profile patent wars will stop as well.