One option is judicial activism. This year, Judge Posner, in an Illinois federal court, tossed out patent arguments made by both Apple and Motorola Mobility in a 38-page opinion that dismissed a lawsuit between the two companies. Cleaning up the patent mess, Judge Posner said in an interview, might also require reducing the duration of patents on digital technologies, which can be as long as 20 years. “That would make a big difference,” he said. “After five years, these patents are mainly traps for the unwary.”

Ideas have also come from policy experts and Silicon Valley. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis recently published a working paper calling for the abolition of patents, saying they do more harm than good.

Another idea is to create different classes of patents, so that some kinds of inventions, like pharmaceuticals, would receive 20 years of ironclad protection, while others, like software, would receive shorter and more flexible terms.

A third suggestion was made by the Internet company Twitter, which released an “Innovator’s Patent Agreement” this year intended to give software engineers some control over how their creations are used. Under the terms of the agreement, companies pledge that patents will be used only for defensive purposes.

“We’re just trying to do something modest,” said Benjamin Lee, Twitter’s legal counsel.

Similarly, law school faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, have proposed a “Defensive Patent License” in which companies would contribute patents to a common pool that shielded participants from litigious aggressors. Companies would be allowed to participate as long as they did not become first-strike plaintiffs. The benefit is that “you don’t have to worry about your patent being weaponized” and used to attack competitors, said Jason M. Schultz, an assistant professor who helped design the license.

But to really make a difference, such ideas require the participation of large technology companies, and the incentives to cooperate are small. So some frustrated engineers have become outspoken advocates for reform.

Mr. Perlman, the independent inventor, for instance, was hopeful his voice would be heard on Capitol Hill. But alongside Mr. Perlman were hundreds of lobbyists from high-tech corporations and the pharmaceutical industry, which often push conflicting proposals. Big technology companies, in general, want to limit the financial damages juries can award for minor patent violations, while drug makers want to make sure they can sue for billions of dollars if a single patent is violated.