Simply abolishing "software patents" would solve 90% of the problem, IMO.
Copyright law should be more than adequate to protect code. A "look" is irrelevant, IMO. Many cars look similar. The technology they're built with (reliability, internal design, etc. etc.) are what is really important, not that they have something like a menu design that looks similar to the iPhone. Well, what are you going to do in such a small amount of space? Icons aren't anything new themselves.
My only concern about targeting "patent trolls" is that reciprocal is still true (i.e. Apple vigorously enforces their own patents, as does Samsung and other large corporations that DO build something). In other words, it's this multitude of hundreds of thousands of patents in general that need to be looked at more carefully. Some tiny little aspect of an overall device shouldn't have its own patent, IMO. Having 5,000 patents describe ONE device gets a little ridiculous, IMO. And thinking of something like having an iPhone swipe credit cards is hardly worth a patent, IMO. It's just another function for a computer to do. Big deal. There are different ways to skin a cat and different ways to read information into a device. If someone copied one's credit card reader plugin device, it's a problem. If someone made their own device with their own design, it shouldn't be a problem. OTOH, if there's only ONE way to do something (i.e. two finger swipe), anyone else trying to do the same thing shouldn't be a victim of a patent lawsuit. It's just too obvious but clearly these patent clerks don't see it that way.
