The United States has been referred to historically as the land of opportunity; a place where a person with a great idea would have the freedom to utilize his knowledge and achieve a level of success denied him elsewhere. One great guarantor of this belief was the U.S. patent system. Beginning with the first patent, awarded in 1790, the U.S. patent system’s guidelines were designed to foster invention by giving credit and financial rewards for the innovative ideas of individuals and companies.
For over 200 years, the U.S. patent system has supported visionaries with the recognition necessary to make an original idea a viable and useful invention. More recently, however, the proliferation of software patents and the inconsistency of their enforcement have created an environment of increased litigation.
