[dangerlibrary]

Typically the 'troll' label is applied to companies like Virnetx because they produce nothing of value. They are strictly rent seekers - net negative economic value creators.

"It's a massive verdict for VirnetX, a company that has no products and makes its money solely through patent litigation."

[kbenson]

Even that's selectively looking at the facts though. At some point they paid for those patents, and that theoretically put money in the pockets of creators, incentivizing them to create more.

That said, to my eyes it's clearly a subversion of the intended purpose of patents, and is societally damaging, so I see no problem with derogatory labeling of this behavior and those that take part in it. It's unfortunate, but it's an important part of getting consensus in a short time frame with a large populace.

[bobwaycott]

That's not selectively looking at the facts at all. The facts are plain:

- company buys patents for the purpose of seeking rents

- company aggressively pursues others who are independently creating potentially valuable products to shake them down for rents

- company produces nothing of value with the patent except for increased wealth transfer by extracting value from others' work

That they [theoretically] put money in someone's pocket to get the patent in the first place does not change any of these facts. And calling attention to the behavior isn't selectively dealing with the facts. They exist purely for rent-seeking.

[kbenson]

> That they [theoretically] put money in someone's pocket to get the patent in the first place does not change any of these facts.

Actually, depending on your definition of rent seeking, it either makes it rent-seeking or not, so it may affect those facts. Would inventors be incentivized to create as much if there wasn't a market for these types of patents? Even if you discounts the type of patents that trolls attempt to control as useless, can we say that those crappy patents didn't subsidize better inventions?

Now, I'm not defending patent trolls, just noting that it may be a mistake to assume there is no economic value to what they do, even though the net outcome is likely negative. The positive and negative consequences may not be entirely comparable, making this easy to overlook.