The problem is that patent trolls and organizations that abuse the patent system to prey on innovators don’t like the solutions that are out there. And they started lobbying hard, so patent reform is dead.

To be fair, the bigger problem is that are also organizations that don’t abuse the patent system, but have patents, but fear that any solutions that stop the trolls will also hurt them a little bit. Since it can be sometimes difficult to distinguish between trolls and abusive use of patents from more legitimate users, laws restricting patent trolls will likely hurt the revenue somewhat of groups that even most of us agree aren’t trolls, like universities, which opposed this bill (Though some of us are suspicious of universities and how they use patents). And they aren’t willing to take a hit for the good of everyone else in stopping the trolls.

If it were just trolls and abusers opposing this law, it wouldn’t have been killed. What killed it is that pretty legitimate patent holders that do real research, like universities, opposed it, out of fear for their own revenue, and not caring enough about everyone else’s problems that the trolls cause, even if the universities aren’t trolls themselves.

That’s a common problem in politics. Sometimes when you take action against Type I errors, you create more Type II errors. Often the balance in taking correction action is worth it (like I think this bill would have been)– but you can’t expect the people who are harmed by Type II errors but not Type I errors not to complain. (In a completely different field, imagine the tradeoffs in civil liberties that sometimes mean a choice between letting more murders and rapists go free, or convicting more innocent people.)