[harrison_clarke]

it's what they don't do. a troll doesn't play any role in developing the tech they hold patents for, they just extract rent when someone stumbles into a similar solution

if a company doesn't develop products, but they actively license their patents to those that do, that's still patents working as intended, and not trolling. they're still helping to get the tech developed, rather than stifling it

(i think there are a lot of problems with software patents even when used as intended by real companies. mainly, they last too long)

[petesergeant]

I dunno, this line of reasoning doesn’t feel right to me. A company making products did develop the technology. They were awarded a patent. That patent was an asset. That asset was sold presumably for the benefit of the people behind the original company. That the resulting asset owner wasn’t the originator doesn’t feel like it should make any difference here?

Software patents are a scourge, I’m just not sure the reasoning there holds.

[zamalek]

> Software patents are a scourge,

The reason is because they aren't being used as they were intended: patents are _supposed_ to be a way to give inventors/entrepreneurs a window to build a market with their idea. Let's say that you have some truly amazing invention that frobnicates foos 50x faster than anyone else, and you plan to take it to market. What would prevent the likes of Amazon from copying your idea with all the resources at their disposal? Patents.

Patents as an asset is exactly the problem. Your entire first paragraph is built on this faulted perspective - the assumption that how we actually use patents is aligned with how they were designed to be used. They are supposed to foster small businesses, not destroy them.

Software patents are a scourge only because patents as a whole have become a scourge.

[petesergeant]

> The reason is because they aren't being used as they were intended: patents are _supposed_ to be a way to give inventors/entrepreneurs a window to build a market with their idea.

If I invent something, I should surely be able to license its production if I don’t want to be in the production game myself. The alternative reduces to the absurd very quickly. If I invent a better system for making ball bearings, it’s not reasonable to say I should only benefit from it if I then personally raise the capital and experience to start a ball bearing manufacturing plant.

[Sohcahtoa82]

There's a key difference though.

If you invent a better system for making ball bearings and patent it, you could bring your system to existing manufacturers and say "I've invented a better system, would you like to license my patent and start using it to bring your costs down and productivity up?" That's fine and most people would be on board.

But a patent troll is different. They're entirely reactive. They wait for someone else to start doing something that is vaguely similar to what you patented, and then they pounce. The troll threatens legal action if they don't license the patent instead.

What patent trolls do is effectively extortion.

[zamalek]

I personally agree with this, but its more difficult to delineate. I suppose the key is that the patent is being used.

[cptskippy]

> That patent was an asset.

That line of thinking is the problem. A patent is intended as a protection to spur development, not an asset to be traded.

The spirit of a patent is to protect a novel solution while a company develops and monetizes their innovation. It keeps bigger fish with deeper pockets from quickly copying your invention and monetizing it before you.

What's happened however is that Large companies with deep pockets are filing patents for anything and everything they can. These patents generally come from their R&D efforts but are not necessarily linked to any product specifically. They're also usually unenforceable junk that wouldn't hold up in court.

The value of these junk patents isn't in the viability to be developed into a product, rather their value is that it will take time and money to invalidate them in court.

When these companies are hit with a lawsuit for violating someone else's patent, their defense is to counter sue with as many junk patents as possible. The purpose of the counter suit is to make a settlement preferable to the protracted legal fight necessary to invalidate all of the junk patents. It's the path of least expense. You could argue this allows large companies to steal innovations from smaller players by forcing cross licensing agreements.

Often these patent portfolios are transferred to companies with no interest in developing products or protecting their business. These companies sole purpose are to weaponize the patents, they're Patent Trolls.

Using the same strategy as companies with defensive patent portfolios, Patent Trolls seek to extract settlements (extort money) from companies by suing them with all the junk patents they can. The patent trolls are immune to counter suit because they produce nothing. Thus companies must either invalidate each junk patent or settle. Often settling is the path of least expense.

[datadrivenangel]

from a strict logic perspective, you're right.

The issue is widespread bad behavior from patent trolls, given that the cost of mass filing patent infringement claims that barely apply is so much lower than the expected settlement, and the cost of a successful defense is likely higher than the request settlement. The incentive is to get a portfolio of overly broad patents and then shake down almost entirely unrelated companies.

[petesergeant]

For sure, the whole thing sucks

[harrison_clarke]

if a company sells the patent to a "troll", but retains a license as part of the deal, i would consider that to be working as intended. it's basically a way to outsource the legal protection

if a company sells it to a broker, and it eventually gets traded or licensed to a company that develops it, i'd also consider that working as intended

if patents keep finding their way to companies that have no intention to either develop it themselves, or license it to others, and keep suing companies that do develop things, i'd consider it a failure of the system

pharma patents get traded to non-developers all the time, but pharma patents mostly do their job of incentivizing innovation. there's still flaws, but the troll problem isn't a big issue in that space

[petesergeant]

> no intention [to] license it to others

The companies that are doing the suing here are — as I understand it here — are suing to force a licensing deal.

[harrison_clarke]

the issue is that there's no knowledge transfer from the patent holder to the developer, in these cases. there's no causal link from the patent to the development

the (forced) licensing deal comes after the development, and hinders it. and it's not to protect development of a related idea, either