The Federal Trade Commission announced today that it stands ready to take on patent trolls. In a speech at the National Press Club, Commissioner Edith Ramirez made two big announcements. First, she revealed that the FTC will conduct a wide-ranging investigation into the conduct of patent trolls. Second, she confirmed that, when appropriate, the FTC is committed to using its antitrust enforcement powers. This is great news for innovation and very bad news for trolls.

This is not a good week to be ArrivalStar.

First, we announced that the Patent Office had significantly narrowed one of ArrivalStar's favorite patents that it uses to target municipalities, civic organizations, and others who provide bus arrival data obtained via GPS.

Frustration with patent trolls, and momentum for reform, has been building for some time now. Today, the stakes got even higher when the White House announced that it was actively taking on the troll problem. This is big news, and not just because of the seven legislative proposals the White House recommends (more on those below).

The patent troll problem is not new. Trolls have been targeting companies large and small for some time, dragging productive businesses into court and extorting licensing fees that have become a nearly unavoidable tax on innovation. This is wrong.

There is exciting news out of the Green Mountain State this week: folks in Vermont are so fed up with patent troll abuse that they are taking matters into their own hands. With trolls filing thousands of lawsuits every year and blanketing the country in threat letters, states are looking for ways to protect victims—especially small entities that lack the resources to defend against a patent suit. Vermont is tackling trolls on two separate fronts.

Though it was paraded around as the biggest change to patent law in half a century, the America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011 failed to address many of the patent system's largest problems. In particular, patent trolls continue their deplorable business model of buying up patents and using the threat of litigation to force companies—frequently startups—to pay up or face ruinous legal fees.

Oh, how the times are changing. The last few weeks have brought significant encouraging news about the prospects for patent reform. Leaders in D.C., including the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, along with the President, have all acknowledged the essential need for immediate reform.

UPDATE APRIL 22:

It's been nearly two years since we first reported about Lodsys, the patent troll who targeted app developers. You might remember that Lodsys had actually filed lawsuits against some app developers in Texas; that case was (and is) slowly moving forward. We hadn't heard anything else from Lodsys in the meantime and assumed (foolishly, perhaps) that it was waiting to see what the judge said. This week, that all changed.