Technology Grease--Patent Law to Change, Improve?

We have often railed here against patents that we find ridiculous, i.e. those that vaguely describe some simple process that even history's dimwits had already figured out for themselves many times over. Like "a process to copy a piece of information using transportable media from one location to another." These patents have been the bane of the internet and computing technology development, including at Apple, in recent years as people have tried to use the courts to enrich themselves by enforcing some ridiculous patent they somehow got through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Anyway, Congress now has a piece of legislation that would set up an appeals process with a panel of three administrative law judges for patents that people wanted to challenge. We can't speak for the specific legislation but it sounds like a good step to us. More... [Dana Baggett]