> can't we just pass a law stating that "the patent is not being used for anything" is a valid patent suit defense? That's how patent law worked until the 1940

> can't we just pass a law stating that "the patent is not being used for anything" is a valid patent suit defense? That's how patent law worked until the 1940s. It was called the "paper patent doctrine." i.e., if you're patent was just on paper, and not used in industry, then the patent was dead. Prof. John Duffy wrote a great paper about it last year - http://cornelllawreview.org/files/2013/10/98CLR1359.pdf http://cornelllawreview.org/files/2013/10/98CLR1359.pdf