Patents are "basically legally binding dibs," John Oliver explained at the beginning of the main story on Sunday's Last Week Tonight. If that sounds boring, it's John Oliver's job to show you the interesting side of something like patent law and explain why you should care. Businesses do — they have paid "patent trolls" an estimated half a trillion dollars since 1990, in what boils down to a game of intellectual-property extortion.
The problem, Oliver explained, is that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is supposed to issue patents for inventions that are "new, useful, and non-obvious" — "all the adjectives that Tom Cruise would say he's seeking in an ideal mate," he added, gratuitously — but in eras of big technological innovation "they can get overwhelmed and certify patents that they shouldn't." And since it is so expensive to go to court, 90 percent of trollish patent suits are settled out of court.
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