Judge Posner dismissed with prejudice an upcoming patent case between Apple and Google. If this is the start of a reversal of ridiculous patent rulings then maybe companies can stop spending billions of dollars buying companies mostly for their patents or just buying the patents directly and start spending billions of dollars on something more useful. "Something more useful" could be anything from R&D, sales and marketing, returning money to shareholders to even just giving away free segways. The current patent system creates a large deadweight loss on society and it's about time something is being done about it.
This post sounds optimistic, so it should be noted that a lot of people are depending on the rents from the patent system and therefore this is just one shot in what will likely be a long and drawn out battle. But it's a shot fired by the right side for once.
For those of you who read the title in a different professor's voice, you may be interested to know that the show has new episodes coming out.