. . . by Mark Lemley, Douglas Lichtman (a member of PFF's Academic Advisory Council) & Bhavan Sampat is available at SSRN. They propose a series of reforms that would "allow the Patent Office to focus its resources on patents that might actually matter, and it would also both reduce the incentive to file patents of questionable validity and reduce the harm caused by such patents in any event."

The proposed reforms are:

"[W]eaken the presumption of validity that today attaches to all issued patents. The modern strong presumption simply does not reflect the reality of patent review";

"[B]ecause legitimate inventors need as much certainty as the law can provide, we would give applicants the option of earning a presumption of validity by paying for a thorough examination of their inventions";

"[B]ecause competitors also have useful information about which patents worry them and which do not, we support instituting a post-grant opposition system".

Link from I/P Updates.