Grousing about oligarchs, special interests, and the political system as a whole is unproductive and misguided. After all, patent reform has already passed with huge bipartisan support in the House of Representatives. Instead, you should focus on the politician most responsible for blocking patent reform - Harry Reid, and the power he wields as Senate Majority Leader. He might not be up for re-election until 2016, bu…
Complaining about oligarchs and special interests misses the mark, in my opinion. Last month, the following companies launched a group to oppose the proposed reforms: Apple, Microsoft, IBM, DuPont, Pfizer, Ford, and GE: http://partnershipforamericaninnovation.org . That's a really broad spectrum of iconic American technology companies. These were joined by a number of research universities as well as groups represent…
IBM: ~400,000 GE: ~300,000 Ford: ~180,000 Apple: ~80,000 Pfizer: ~78,000 DuPont: ~70,000
Additionally, I know that Microsoft almost another 100,000 people employed as "vendors". Furthermore, these are the kinds of stocks that tend to be widely held by e.g. pension funds and 401k programs, so their impact extends well beyond their employees.
Now to be fair, these employee counts are worldwide and not just in the United States -- and the interests of their management are not necessarily aligned with the interests of the employees. But it's important to have some perspective on the scales of things. Historically, Ford has done a lot more to raise the standard of living of the average American than Facebook has.
Disclosure: I work at Microsoft.