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Patent trolls buy patents for $600m?! How the hell trolls amassed so much money? Are there investment banks and VCs which invest in patent trolls?
by mrkramer 5y ago
Patent trolls buy patents for $600m?! How the hell trolls amassed so much money? Are there investment banks and VCs which invest in patent trolls?
- sbarre 5y agoYes there are. Plenty of folks out there who want to make money from their money and don't care how. So funds get raised for this kind of venture pretty easily.
- __MatrixMan__ 5y agoThe ability to make money without contributing towards improving something is a cancer. If we don't cut it out things will get worse.
- dvtrn 5y agoHow long before greed is literally evolved out of our brains?
- mschuster91 5y agoWe're humans. We can dis-incentivize greed through legal frameworks - taxes on speculative assets or on patents that are not used or fairly licensed by the owners, for example.
- sbarre 5y agoThis is probably more complicated than it sounds. What consists of "not used" or "fairly licensed"? Who decides this, and how do those definitions evolve over time? Like most legal frameworks they would likely lag behind the reality of the times they are applied to... I'm all for trying to prevent abuses and patent trolls and the like, but it's not as easy to solve as it might seem.
- mschuster91 5y agoSure, but we could set at least some basic parameters, e.g. "not used" = "has not been used in an actually available product in the last five years" and "fairly licensed" = "the patent holder has listed a process and conditions under which the patent can be licensed, there exists a mediation process in case an applicant deems the fees/conditions to be excessive, and there are no complaints filed at the regulatory agency about unfair treatment".
- sbarre 5y ago> has not been used in an actually available product in the last five years What if the production cycle is longer than 5 years? > the patent holder has listed a process and conditions under which the patent can be licensed, there exists a mediation process in case an applicant deems the fees/conditions to be excessive, and there are no complaints filed at the regulatory agency about unfair treatment This sounds like something that everyone would dispute, and there would be a years-long waiting list for mediation. I agree with you in principle, but I just think it wouldn't work.
- tasha0663 5y ago> taxes You've just moved the greed from one place to another.
- __MatrixMan__ 5y agoWell, if we start killing the greedy ones now, perhaps in a few thousand years. Or we can just find non-evolutionary ways to keep it in check.
- iamacyborg 5y agoRent seeking is bad, yes.
- andrei_says_ 5y agoMore like bridge trolling.
- fartcannon 5y agoI'm gonna start referring to my landlord as a bridge troll.
- tasha0663 5y agoConfound your lousy toll, troll!
- andrei_says_ 5y agoHe takes care of the house. A bridge troll finds a bridge and then starts extracting toll from everyone crossing it without providing any benefit. A landlord is pretty close but not quite the same. But landlordship leads to most humans being born on this Earth already indebted into serfdom to the ones “owning” the land.
- iamacyborg 5y agoI like this analogy.
- samhw 5y agoEh, there are upsides to this. Litigation funds (which invest to buy speculative chunks of 'promising' lawsuits) do enable people to sue large companies when they otherwise wouldn't have had the wherewithal. That said, it's likely a net negative, I agree.
- pqb 5y agoIt sounds like a perfect way to wash money. I am surprised any mafia or cartel have not taken part in this business yet.
- aliswe 5y ago> How the hell trolls amassed so much money? ... by patent trolling
- gpvos 5y agoIt's in TFA: > The company is funded by a $450 million senior secure loan, which includes $400 million of "conditional commitments from a lending syndicate" led by Third Eye Capital.
- mrkramer 5y agoSo basically by patent trolling and investing in patent trolls investors are encouraging patent trolls to de facto legally harass people and companies and cause distress on multiple levels(affected company, lawyers and court) which all costs time, money and energy.