Looking for a platform? Try Patent Reform

My advice to all those running against Trump.  Offer some ideas, like what you would do if elected.  Trump does this, and it's one of the things that keeps him up in the polls.  Most pols these days go out of their way to avoid speaking out on issues, 'cause once you take a side on an issue, all the voters on the other side of that issue, will never forget or forgive.  The voters on your side, forget and do you no good.
   So, how about an issue that everyone is in favor of?  Sure winner, you get some free media, and you don't make enemies.  What issue might that be?
   Howsabout patent reform.  The current US patent system discourages innovation.  As soon as you bring a new product to market, you get a patent troll suing you for infringing some obscure patent that he, the troll, just happens to hold.  Who can not be in favor of fixing this?  Except for the patent trolls that is.  But there just ain't enough patent trolls in the world to matter. 
  What to do?  First clean up the patent application business.  Right now,  you can get a patent on anything, written as vaguely and as broadly as to be a barn door.  Anything will go thru it.  We ought to not allow any patents on software, nor any patents on "business methods", nor patents on arbitrary arrangements of things, like the QWERTY keyboard or the Morse code.   We should demand a working model of the patented idea.  If you cannot make a working model that works, you don't have a patentable idea.   We should demand that the idea be really new, not "obvious to anyone skilled in the art".   Which means the patent examiner needs to actually contact some of those skilled in the art and see what they think about the pending patent. Especially we should not grant a new patent on a minor change.  I hear big pharma has been granted new patents on existing drugs after they merely changed the size of the pill.
   Then we need to keep the trolls out.  To have the standing to sue for patent infringement, you need to be making and selling product yourself that uses the claimed patent.  You cannot just be a law office with a bunch of vague patents and some mouthy lawyers.  Unless you are actually making something useful, you don't get to sue.
   Any, make patents non transferable.  The patent rights are granted to the inventor, or the inventor's company.  The patent owner can collect royalties on his patent but he may not sell the patent to the trolls.