Do patent auctions have a bright future? Barry Evans and Gregory Dolin think so, and they argue their case in a column on the Corporate Dealmaker site. Ocean Tomo, organizer of the first live, multi-lot auction, naturally agrees—check out this upbeat account of the event the firm ran on April 6 in San Francisco. Other accounts weren't quite so glowing. Still, the Ocean Tomo folks have a second auction scheduled for October 25-26 in New York, and you'll find the catalog on their Web site.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of corporate folks who see the prospect of more patent auctions as a symptom of what's wrong with the current IP climate. What a lot of corporates want most is simply freedom to operate their businesses, and they decry a shift toward an overly legalistic treatment of patents that they say is bound to favor—here comes that epithet—patent trolls.

Expect the argument to continue, both here and elsewhere. And be of good cheer: at least we're arguing about something important. — Kenneth Klee

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