This is potentially positive, but many times the patent troll shell companies deliberately hold very few assets. Even if the Supreme Court makes it easier to capture legal fees from them, there may not be a lot to capture (if anything).
A sane legal system would then require the plaintiff to post a bond in this case.
Agree with both sentiments. There needs to be some mechanism to pierce the shell corporation and get to the beneficiaries, whether they are the representing legal firm or the licensing entities, in egregious cases.
A good idea might be that in egregious cases, the law firm representing the troll might also be fined for their participation.
They own the patent, I say make them give that up since it's obviously worth so much.
But even bankrupting the small shell entity causes enough overhead for the parent company to hesitate before attacking.
This could be heaven or it could be hell. Supreme court precedent either could kick patent troll war into overdrive or it could secure their place under the sun. One would be good for startups and competition. Guess which.
How about you lose, you pay? The "small pennyless inventor" is a romantic fantasy.
Everyone is penniless compared to the size of the market where every participant can instantly copy just the components. For existing tech, there's nothing special about this - of course you can assemble a bicycle the same way every other bike is assembled. But for new tech this is a killer difference: with the protections, "penniless" inventors (everyone) has a chance to make a fundamental investment of time and resources. Without the invention you can just do unpaid R&D for the existing players. If they can also sue you in case they outlaw you, then even the possibility of licensing to them disappears.
"outlaw" should read "out-lawyer", "without the invention" should be "without the protection". Sorry about the haste.
As we learned from IASIP, "you got to pay the troll toll".