Resist the urge to just 'do something' about patent reform

By Colin Hanna in The Washington Examiner

The new Republican Senate majority will soon be put to a test that is empty-headed and almost entirely the product of the mainstream media and its subsidiary, the polling industry: Can it “get things done?”

But there are some “things” that shouldn’t be done, even if they can be. One effort to garner bipartisan support that might soon make its way to the Senate floor is so-called patent reform.

As print, broadcast and Internet journalism continue their declines into little more than a source of simplistic sound bites and catch phrases, the public interest is being robbed of its most effective defender. Patent reform is complex, murky and legalistic. Average citizens cannot necessarily grasp its nuances easily.