John Oliver on Patents

Howdy,

Hello everyone, I will be talking about the Patent segment of John Oliver's show. I really enjoyed this show because it was very entertaining and hilarious but it was also quite informative in regard to patents. Despite the fact that it was funny, it is also kind of sad that this is the reality in which we live where patents can be trolled and harm innovation. Some important points of his message were that a quarter of all patent cases are decided in one small town in Texas where there is a circuit court where the trials are held. The reason for this is that it is a small town that doesn't have the highest level of experience in patent laws and are generally farmers and of high school education. Thus, they tend to skew towards the side of the small firms against the huge. This was such an issue that Samsung put an ice rink in front of the courthouse which is kind of crazy seeing how its quite hot in Texas. Another key point of his message was that the trolls have caused half a trillion dollars in damage by ruining innovation and causing large payouts for these tech firms.