By taxing more the profits derived from patents you might, on the margin, reduce conflicts between true inventors and trolls.

Sir, Richard Waters discusses that delicate issue about a too rigid or too lax patent allocation system and so rightly states “The trouble is, one person’s abusive troll is another’s deserving inventor”, “Tech industry opens a Pandora’s box of patent strife”, April 4.

One way to diminish the conflict might be to reduce, on the margin, the worth of patents and other intellectual protection.

Since some years I have for instance argued that it does not really fair that profits obtained by competing naked in the market, without any safety net, should be taxed at the same rate as profits derived from an activity that has the protection of a patent… especially when the government is expected to spend tax revenues in its protection.