Everyone's heard the story about the little guy in his garage who came up with a great invention, got a patent, and then became wildly successful selling his product to millions. Problem is, garage-inventor millionaires are pretty hard to find. Filing for a patent is complicated, expensive, time consuming, and then subject to myriad challenges from vested interests. In fact, the patent system today is most often used by well-heeled individuals and organizations to impede the introduction of better products by competitors.

Why Patents Don't Work: How a Broken Patent System Thwarts Innovation and Curbs Competition is the story of America's patent system, written for people curious about why we have patents, how they work, whom they benefit, and what effects they have on society. Lately, the story is not pretty. The book explains how low-quality patents issued by an overburdened Patent Office, together with rampant litigation, have slowed technological innovation and choked off competition in many of our most robust industries.

After walking the reader through the history of the modern-day patent system, Why Patents Don't Work provides example after painful example of how the system today threatens not just product development and economic competition but routine aspects of daily life like health care and means of communication. Why Patents Don't Work concludes with a call for society to enact the necessary reforms that will ensure the patent system regains its ethical and moral underpinnings and once again benefits all Americans. This book:

• Tells the story of how the patent system evolved from the time our Founders included it in the Constitution, when it was intended to promote progress, to today, where it often rewards those companies and individuals who understand, and are willing to spend to win, the game.
• Describes the overall harmful effect today's patent system has on society, both economically and socially.
• Tells the stories of patent "trolls" who extract dubious license fees, threaten lawsuits, and slow down the economy; of large companies, working with research universities, that attempt to patent things like human genes and stem cells; of taxpayer-funded research projects that result in privately held patents; and of patents granted for sequences of activities—even such things as how to use mock trials to prepare for a real one.
• Suggests concrete ways we can revive the true purpose of the patent system in order to ensure America remains the world's leading technological innovator while respecting fair competition and individual liberty.