Yes, Virginia, patent reform 2008 is really dead

More than one month after the IPBiz post Stick a fork in it: patent reform 2008 is done, various news entities have figured out patent reform 2008 is gone:

HEATHER CHAMBERS, Patent Reform Now Unlikely in 2008
[from San Diego, reporting site of Terri Somers]

Dana Blankenhorn, Patent reform dead for 2008, which includes the dull-witted text:

That’s because one of the act’s main aims was to end “forum shopping,” the practice of filing lawsuits in, say, the Eastern District of Texas, which never saw a patent plaintiff it didn’t like.

The act would have also streamlined reviews of patent claims and made some other important reforms. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing.

Anybody that thinks that post-grant review (aka opposition) streamlined review of patent claims ought to be sent back to third grade, immediately, and given a long timeout.

*****Separately

Patents and innovation: an empirical study by Edwin Mansfield

Note also Paul J. Heald (who co-organized Bessen/Meurer sympsium), A skeptical look at Mansfield's famous 1994 survey