Wikipedia offers the following definition of a patent troll:
Patent troll is a pejorative term used for a person or company that enforces its patents against one or more alleged infringers in a manner considered unduly aggressive or opportunistic, often with no intention to manufacture or market the product. A related, less pejorative expression is non-practicing entity (NPE) which describes a patent owner who does not manufacture or use the patented invention.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation offers the following:
A patent troll uses patents as legal weapons, instead of actually creating any new products or coming up with new ideas. Instead, trolls are in the business of litigation (or even just threatening litigation). They often buy up patents cheaply from companies down on their luck who are looking to monetize what resources they have left, such as patents. Unfortunately, the Patent Office has a habit of issuing patents for ideas that are neither new nor revolutionary, and these patents can be very broad, covering everyday or commonsense types of computing – things that should never have been patented in the first place. Armed with these overbroad and vague patents, the troll will then send out threatening letters to those they argue infringe their patent(s). These letters threaten legal action unless the alleged infringer agrees to pay a licensing fee, which can often range to the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Media reports define patent trolling as a form of extortion which inhibit innovation, which contradicts the intent of the patent clause of the U.S. Constitution. Lawsuits filed by patent trolls are clogging the courts.
Congress attempted to address this issue in 2011 with the America Invents Act, (co-wriiten by Texas Rep Lamar Smith) but critics argue that provisions of the law may have contributed to the increase in lawsuits. Rather than address the current problem with additional legislation - which can be problematic in the current contentious legislative environment - President Obama has opted to use executive orders instead. The NYT outlines the proposals:
On Tuesday, President Obama took direct aim at the companies and their practices, announcing several executive orders “to protect innovators from frivolous litigation” by patent trolls.
Mr. Obama ordered the Patent and Trademark Office to require companies to be more specific about exactly what their patent covers and how it is being infringed. The administration also told the patent office to tighten scrutiny of overly broad patent claims and said it would aim to curb patent-infringement lawsuits against consumers and small-business owners who are simply using off-the-shelf technology.
A major criticism right now is that they are granting patents to obvious and superficial ideas, and not necessarily actual products. Some software companies express concerns about the proposals however. Here is an editorial suggesting that judges already have the power to limit the number of lawsuits filed by patent trolls by increasing the costs of litigation. So there's a dispute over the best way to address this issue.
2305 students are about to pour through the Constitution and we will note that one of the delegated powers is the patent clause - which tend to be topical. Click here for past blog posts related to it.
It might be worth investigating the history of the Patent and Trademark Office. And here is a history of the U.S. Patent system.
