[muhfuhkuh]

This is the problem with Patent troll "portfolio companies" like his: It doesn't make anything, so there can never be a countersuit with protective patents.

So, even if we had IBM step in with its portfolio of 30,000 patents (and growing by 5000 each year) and snarl up the entire industry to prove a point, Allen would be like "whatever" and soldier on, because he makes nothing.

[dedward]

disclaimer- I'm against software patents in general. However, in this case, to argue against my own opinions:

The research and resultant patents in this case were in the public record for all to see, read, and if they found the idea useable, free to contact the patent holder to discuss a deal.

The patent systems a broken mess - no argument here. But a firm that actually did research on specific items, kept track of a relatively small portfolio and then selectively went after some big boys isn't as much of a patent troll as those who just buy up thousands and thousands of them and muscle people around.)

[arebop]

Take your not-so-much-of-a-troll company and allow them to hire not only researcher-employees, but also researcher-independent-contractors. Are they more trollish now? If not, what if some of their researchers band together to lower their insurance costs and improve their tax situation; they establish their own contracting firm which the not-a-troll company pays to supply researchers. Finally, what if this contracting firm works on a part-time or short-term basis with many companies who want research done?

The problem with trolling is not that properties that can be sold and monetized by the new owner. It is that ideas are being treated as (material) property. Ideas can be formed by multiple persons independently, and any given idea can be shared among any number of thinkers without diminishing the strength of the thought. In particular, you can have submarine patents that nobody realizes they're infringing until the day the troll emerges from under his bridge to tell the whole world to pay up. Or, one can be granted a patent on an idea that's actually quite common and obvious, and this patent can back up a threat of costly and risky litigation, effecting the coercive transfer of money from productive members of society to patent-system-abusers.

Innovators need access to scarce material goods and they have limited lifetimes, but extending our effective scheme for managing scarce resources to the ideas they develop is not working so well.

[patrickaljord]

> because he makes nothing

He does license patents, if IBM can prove one the licensed patent is based on one or more IBM patents, they could counter sue.

[kreneskyp]

as i understood it you can patent improvements on patented technology even if you don't hold those patents. You just can't ever use your improvements without a license.

If that really is true, then Paul Allen isn't infringing, the people who are licensing from him are.