The sewing machine patents

http://volokh.com/posts/chain_1240849478.shtml is a better link. The content is really in those 3 links at the bottom. His basic point as I understand it is that there never really was the good old days of the patent system and that it has been broken since long before computers. People have always had to pool patents to make progress.

I went to a talk once where the presenter made the case (very well) that there was just one single patent that enabled Singer to sew up, so to speak, the market.

Even more elegant, it came down to just one claim.

The claim was for a sewing device in which the thread went through a hole that was positioned near the sharp tip of the needle (unlike on a hand sewing needle, where the hole is on the other end). Simple, and very hard to get around.

Just to make sure I didn't read it incorrectly - is this the summary?

Patent pools can overcome patent trolls, and that there's no need to change the patent system even with the advent of technology such as biotech and software

The paper's topic seemed really interesting, but the blog post didn't really give a summary of the paper's major points. all it did was quote three paragraphs from the paper's conclusion