The Patent Scam

The documentary takes up a by-product of the patent system in the United States. Certain companies take out patents on obvious and widespread ideas. They then sue anyone they claim is using that idea. The examples the film gives are these: clicking a link, using your own scanner, sharing your wireless network. Small businesses find themselves in court, and by the film’s account they are left with no way out. The work argues this has become an area worth billions. The film shows the practice as an outcome the system itself produced. The account is openly partisan, and that view is the film’s own. The hundred and ten minutes are given to that question. Austin Meyer’s American documentary was completed in 2017.