Does anyone know of a better mechanism besides patent pledges to allow for things to be open source and protected from predatory patenting? I've founded a nonprofit research entity (launching in 2014), and in our bylaws we are required to not patent things. Initially, I wanted to use the Statutory Invention Registration system to keep things <i>libre</i> and getting some level of protection without defensive patenting, but it turns out that as a result of the America Invents Act, the SIR has been eliminated.
Those patent trolls are the same as computer hackers. They hack the legal system. But the government is too occupied with more important issues to fix this, rather complicated "bug". I wonder if it would be possible to design a legal system that would work similarly to an open-source project, where anyone could contribute, just not all contributions accepted, etc.