The Patent Troll | Hacker News Reader

The Patent Troll

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26 pointsTriinT6 comments

I sometimes think that patent trolls are just the scapegoat for larger issues at hand. Patent trolls are simply acting upon their rights with issued patents. In many cases, the patent trolling is not what is absurd - it is the patents. Patents that really never should have issued.

We have a IP culture in the United States where patents are distributed very freely and with minimal review. This generally isnt a problem because litigation is the "nuclear button" of IP enforcement - it costs 1million+ for both sides even to start. So, as long as everyone just uses patents are trading cards everything is fine. Companies routinely start new enterprises without a prior art search... because they do not expect anyone to actually _litigate_.

When the absurd patents go to litigation, though, it becomes painfully clear how broad and abusive the patents in question were in the first place. Big companies are embarrassed and emptied of their money because they _did_ infringe.

The USPTO must become more selective when issuing patents, and companies must own up to the fact that they are responsible for infringement, no matter who owns the patent or if they are an NPE or not.

This is a good article!

What does HN think about the term "patent pirates" for these people? Like maritime pirates, they use threats to extort money from people engaged in legitimate businesses, while carrying out no productive activity of their own.

I think that in the next few years, the markets for patents he describes will make the US a substantially worse place to try to carry out innovation or sell an innovative product. They're pretty much inevitable, because the economic value of a patent held by a patent pirate is much greater than the economic value of a patent held by a productive enterprise that is vulnerable to a patent countersuit.

I concur with you. Pirate is definitely a more pertinent term. Patent trolls recklessly attack companies in hopes of finding some good loot. What they're doing may not be illegal, but it's ethically murky at best.

For some reason this article made me make a mental connection between the looters in Atlas Shrugged and patent trolls. Both use government licenses to extort money from productive organizations.

The absurdity of some software patents, which are analogous to patenting a new legal argument or a particular sentence structure no one has used before, means I have to live outside of the law in order to do what I love: writing software.

Of course these "productive organizations" often also have portfolios of patents that they use to prevent small businesses entering their market. And they often spin-off separate companies to act as patent trolls. The whole thing is rotten but to many people profit from it for it to change any time soon.

Remind me - how are folks who invent things supposed to make a living? One answer is "they're not". Another is "salary". Another is "start a company". Of course, combinations are possible.

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