[ron0c]

You will notice that University of Wisconsin Madison is not on that list. This is because Dr. Harry Steenbock (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Steenbock) with fantastic vision started the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF http://www.warf.org/about-us/about-us.cmsx) where discoveries made at UW get the help of the team of lawyers to guide through the patent process while the royalties paid then go back to the university. Starting with his discovery on fortifying food with Vitamin D by method of ultraviolet light in 1925.

WARF is an enormous success at UW and last year alone contributed over $100 million back to the university.

[jessaustin]

If one were a cynic, one might suspect that UW is just playing the troll itself. Assuming that it isn't, what controls are in place that help UW avoid registering and then seeking royalties on trivial patents? If administrators decided that WARF should instead contribute $200M yearly, wouldn't the resulting patent inflation carry the whole operation into troll territory?

[shagie]

One can easily browse the patents and newly submitted inventions that are registered to the WARF: http://www.warf.org/technologies/new-patents.cmsx - the sidebar organizes them by category.

The intention is more of "hey entrepreneurs, we've got this technology developed in academia - if you see a business model based on this, talk to us so you can use it."

Of note, if you follow the 'technologies - information technology - software' path, you'll note that none of these are actually patents. They're listed as "technologies" instead.

There do appear to be some patents listed... things like low profile, ultra wide band antenna and wideband transceiver for antenna array.

All that said, one of the distinctions between the patent troll and the warf is that of "the warf is seeking business partnerships for people to use technologies, inventions, and patents developed at the university of madison" and the troll is "buying patents from one party and suing another party for royalties." The business model for the two is completely different.

[wmf]

So far I can only find one trollish lawsuit from WARF (against Apple) so it's not clear how bad they are.

[rhino369]

Plenty of people call WARF a patent troll. There really isn't a difference between selling the patents and running your own trolling operation.

[cloudjacker]

The secret is that internet outrage memes arent real life