That doesn't follow. The way these changes are being billed in Congress is that they're necessary to keep trolls from taking advantage of the patent system. Taking measures to prevent gaming of the system is not the same as weakening the system.
Undoubtedly some proponents of the bill see it as a first step towards weakening patents generally, but that's not how it's being billed.
The current state of the patent system is such that having been granted a patent legally supersedes in power the act of enabling technological advancement. That is to say that the power of the patent system has surpassed its social justification, and therefore should be scaled back to bring those two things in line. Doing so would weaken the patent system, but bring it in line with its intended purpose.
If you prefer to think of it in terms of loopholes, I would point out that loopholes in a system of restrictions act to increase the powers enabled by that system. To close those loopholes is to decrease the power that the system is capable of imparting.
All of that is to say that taking steps to make it harder for non-practicing entities to abuse the system in a way that has a net detriment on technology and innovation is the very act of closing the areas of copyright law that empower non-practicing entities to the detriment of practicing entities. Ideally such a change would decrease the power of the patent system just enough to shut out those who have a negative net impact on the advancement of technology and innovation.
> The current state of the patent system is such that having been granted a patent legally supersedes in power the act of enabling technological advancement. That is to say that the power of the patent system has surpassed its social justification...
I'm not sure what your first sentence actually means, but there is not enough evidence to support the following sentence. I know it's a popular opinion around here, but really, it's because this place is an echo chamber when it comes to certain topics.
There are studies that show how NPEs have beneficial effects (see work by Michael Risch, Jay Kesan, Anne Layne-Farrar etc.), and others showing their harmful effects are not as bad as media makes it look. The GAO report on NPEs, for instance, found that they are no big problem, really.
Unfortunately, the data available is limited in a big way: there is no data at all on demand letters that trolls like Lodsys send. There's an act that would help track these things too (http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/11/patent-reform-2013-d...), and that's the one I'm really looking forward to. That data would give a much clearer picture of the NPE situation.
Undoubtedly some proponents of the bill see it as a first step towards weakening patents generally, but that's not how it's being billed.