A new VFAT patent avoidance patch

A very common misconception. Others have commented upon that. My first thought when I read it was about how convoluted our laws governing various forms of IP are, and how even people paying attention can lose track of the ball. But then it occurred to me that in this case, it makes a great deal of sense for trademarks to be handled in this way, and differently from patents and copyrights. If you aren't defending your old trademark... it's not really your trademark anymore.

Once government gets into the business of handing out monopolies (and we've actually moved out of the realm of "limited monopolies", haven't we?) things get complicated fast, even without the influence of special interests.

No wonder the wise folks at the Philadelphia Convention tried to be conservative in that vein. Unfortunately, they seem to have had more confidence in the Congressional branch they were creating than turned out to be warranted.

There's a science fiction short story (the author's name eludes me. Perhaps it was Asimov) in which William Shakespeare is thrown forward in time and ends up in a contemporary college course on the interpretation of the works of Shakespeare... and flunks it.

I sometimes wonder what the framers of the U.S. Constitution would have to say about our current condition, and legal interpretations of their document.