The Washington Post quotes Professor Mark Lemley on recent developments in patent litigation with respect to Apple cellphones. 

The patent system has been in focus all year, with the Senate last week announcing a bipartisan proposal to reform the system. Similar to legislation that passed the House last year, the Senate bill will be aimed at making life more difficult for abusive lawsuits by so-called patent trolls — companies that buy up dubious patents from inventors and use them to extract settlements from innovators and users rich and poor.

Last month, the U.S. Patent Office hosted its annual “Design Day,” which brought together representatives of an estimated 40,000 industrial designers to discuss developments in the law specific to design patents, a growing and problematic category.

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Stanford law professor Mark Lemley, a preeminent patent scholar, rejects Apple’s approach. In a brief signed by Lemley and nearly 30 other scholars, the authors note that as many as 250,000 active patents cover various aspects of today’s complex devices. Attributing all of their value to their rectangular shape, the brief argues, follows neither the law nor common sense. “People don’t buy iPhones simply because they look cool; they buy them because they function.”