Over the past week or so I have been seeing people I follow on twitter tweet up a storm about the Patent Innovation Act. Fred Wilson wrote a good post on it at his blog yesterday. As always the discussion was worth reading as well. Gigaom also has a summary.

As someone who has listented to many podcasts I was happy to see the provision that would allow technology manufacturers to engage in litigation while litigation against users would be halted. Many of the blogs and tweets I have read from podcasters and mobile developers have lamented the threat of patent trolls and now this would allow Apple to step-in and defend them. Unfortunately for entrepeneurs, patent litigation is expensive and the threat of a lawsuit can cause them to have to pack their bags.

We still have some ways to go before the problem that patent trolls cause is tamed. However this is a good step and it appears that with the support of the White House and hopefully a passing vote in the Senate this will make the lives of entrepreneurs a little easier.