Larry Downes: “The Stupidest Patents of 2017” (Washington Post)

The year 2017 was a critical one for patents — limited legal monopolies granted to inventors to control the market for their innovations. Notably, the U.S. Supreme Court decided two cases this year that continued a trend of reining in patent trolls, companies that buy up wildly overbroad patents and then sue anyone and everyone for infringement, looking for easy settlements. Read more.