With the latest damage caused by patent law here in the US, I think it's time to step back and ask a basic question: are patents now doing more damage than harm? The Vonage case is just the latest example of patent law being used to shutdown a competitor (without regard to prior art questions). There's also the entire (and utterly absurd) area of "business process" patents (like Amazon's One-Click Patent). I think it's time to look further than reform - we need to step back and ask whether the patent system we have is hurting us more than it's helping

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