Trolls who target small players in the hopes of raking in small settlements all over the place are a real evil, to be sure. But from my perspective working on t

Trolls who target small players in the hopes of raking in small settlements all over the place are a real evil, to be sure. But from my perspective working on this sort of litigation for a living, the real threat is actually damages in cases involving standard-essential patents, and that's where the troll line starts to blur. Plaintiffs like CSIRO may not be trolls, per se, but they use the same hired gun damages experts that the trolls do (like Ocean Tomo). The amount of money they seek is completely untenable in the context of standard essential patents, if only because our phones and computers would cost astronomically more money if everyone holding one of the thousands of allegedly standard-essential patents got the kind of money plaintiffs like CSIRO ask for in these cases. As an aside, patents don't really get "knocked out" in discovery. They get knocked out by defendants filing IPRs, seeking re-exam by the PTO, and occasionally at trial. It's unbelievably rare for a judge to invalidate a patent on summary judgment (which happens post-discovery).