Idiocy amok at Techdirt?

In discussing Larry Downes' theory that Paul Allen is attempting patent reform by his patent lawsuits, Mike Masnick notes:

I don't buy it. There are, obviously, lots of ways to go about pushing for patent reform, but dragging a bunch of companies and yourself through the court system seems like one of the least effective ways to go about doing so.

and one TechDirt commenter goes further in noting: Downes's idiocy is an attempt to outlaw idiots.

Elsewhere, Techdirt had text concerning Wozniak's commentary on Allen:

So, wait, patents are the heart of the system, but there's a ton of ambiguity. Can someone ship Woz a copy of Bessen and Meurer's Patent Failure quickly, so he can learn about the stacks upon stacks of research that have shown that "ambiguity in the system" now costs society a hell of a lot more than any innovation created by it?

showing that Masnick can't tell the difference between "stacks of research" and ipse dixit arguments. Hmmm, how many refereed articles did Bessen ever put out? Does Masnick know what a refereed article is?

From a 2008 IPBiz post [Mike Masnick, unbundled ]:

IPBiz reminds readers that, about two years ago, Mike Masnick was raving about "new, peer-reviewed" work by Bessen which had been ignored in the patent community. When the Masnick foggy FUD had cleared, it became apparent that the work by Bessen was not new, not peer-reviewed, and not ignored in the patent community. Hyperbole is a Masnick trademark (don't know if he goes after infringers; nobody really tops him, anyway). Curiously, his over-hyped, yet incrementalist, style is a microcosm of the IT positions he seeks to represent.

Previous IPBiz post on Wozniak videoclip about Allen:


Wozniak is NOT against the idea of patent trolls