Two good-news articles today. One discusses how the US Supreme Court stated that Microsoft didn't have to pay software patent royalties when copies of Windows are made and installed on computers abroad, and a second where the US Supreme Court loosens patent 'obviousness' test which should reduce some of the poor quality patents retained by the USPTO. Both are important improvements to the courts interpretation of US patent law.
Ironically, had this been a country other than the USA we would likely see these as excuses to add them to the USTR's Special 301 report. Both Canada and Thailand are fully honouring their international commitments under both WIPO and WTO in this area of policy (unlike the USA), and have improvements over US law to protect the rights of their citizens, but are listed in this report. That report is so clearly not about protecting rights, but a measure of how different a countries PCT regime is from the USA. Given the failures of US policy in this area, being on the list should be taken as a badge of honour.