Suing Silicon Valley

[Commentary] Paul Allen became a billionaire by co-founding Microsoft, whose software dominates the personal computer industry. Now Allen is seeking to expand that fortune by suing some of Silicon Valley's biggest companies, which he accuses of violating heretofore unheard-of patents on some core Internet technologies. The sad thing about the case is that it's not unusual; a whole industry has developed around these battles. Many of the largest U.S. technology firms have urged Congress to end patent shakedowns. Their proposed solutions, however, have been resisted by pharmaceutical companies and honest-to-goodness inventors whose interests are protected, albeit imperfectly, by the current system. Congress should be able to resolve these issues without reducing the incentives for inventors that patents were supposed to safeguard. A good starting point would be to give the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office the resources needed to examine patent applications more thoroughly. If not, we hope the courts will continue to restore balance to the patent system case by case.