The Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee is finally proposing a bill to improve our broken patent system. There’s a hearing today on H.R. 2795, the “Patent Act of 2005,” though there does not yet appear to be a public draft online. Maybe Lamar Smith is not entirely evil. Anyway, though the bill is roughly equivalent to sticking a few band-aids on a gushing head wound, it’s better than nothing.