

Senate Republicans are getting ready to declare war on patent trolls - ghosh
http://www.vox.com/2014/11/20/7251877/republican-patent-troll-fight

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lsiebert
Yeah, mostly senate republicans want to limit trial lawyers, and strengthen
large businesses. Trial lawyers serve as one of the ways that people in the US
can impose limits on companies, through class action suits and other ways of
seeking remedy. Republicans see this as a backdoor to increase risk associated
with suing companies that misbehave.

Of course dealing with patent trolls is important, but watch for this to bleed
over to other areas of the legal and regulatory system when it comes up.

And the truth is that strengthening class action lawsuits and corporate
accountability to consumers, shareholders, etc would be well in line with
traditional free market thinking, and weakening them serves to distort the
market. You want businesses that behave badly to be penalized, so that good
behavior is rewarded by market forces.

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dccoolgai
The velvet paw concealing the remorseless fang which will for the next two(?)
years be disemboweling any vestige of corporate accountability still left. I
like the stance against patent trolling... but no thank you.

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cryoshon
It'll be more than two years unless there is a major outcry.

The next election's all-too-predictable swinging back to the Democrats will
not result in anything changing. After all, the Democrats wouldn't even be
running in the elections if they hadn't been handed corporate cash. Sure,
there will be some mumblings about progress in social issues to win them the
votes, but they won't think that corporate domination is a real social issue.

