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In a sane law system, the existence of a company as a mere "box of patents" without any real product currently or previously on the market would be illegal, and

In a sane law system, the existence of a company as a mere "box of patents" without any real product currently or previously on the market would be illegal, and these patent trolls won't exist...

bityard 2y ago
I don't think they should be illegal... companies that don't "produce" anything are useful for lots of different legitimate reasons. But the bar for suing for damages should be a lot higher than just, "we happen to own the patents."
burmanm 2y ago
Where would you draw a line for "any real product" ? ARM for example doesn't actually produce any "real" (physical) product, but they certainly do research and produce technology for other companies to build products on. There's a lot of "on paper" companies around the world who actually do produce novel technologies even if they don't themselves create the end product, but instead sell their inventions to other parties.
- wildrhythms 2y ago
  This problem is already solved by a Patent License Agreement. I don't know why people think this is a difficult problem. It's not.
  - MrDrMcCoy 2y ago
    It actually is a difficult problem. Not only could the patent holder want to charge too much for the license, they may not want to grant a license at all. The problem is that patent holders have a monopoly when they should not. Licensing should be compulsory, at reasonable rates.
marcosdumay 2y ago
So, no researcher can own a company. Why did everybody just accept the idea that what makes a troll is them having no product when the problem is clear the high costs of litigation and low quality of the patents (and the patents selection)? IBM is the largest and most destructive patent troll around. And all of that is just propaganda designed to make it and other companies like it rich.
- MrDrMcCoy 2y ago
  The problem with patents boils down to abuse of monopoly power. The solution is to take the monopoly away.

In a sane law system, the existence of a company as a mere "box of patents" without any real product currently or previously on the market would be illegal, and these patent trolls won't exist...

bityard 2y ago

I don't think they should be illegal... companies that don't "produce" anything are useful for lots of different legitimate reasons. But the bar for suing for damages should be a lot higher than just, "we happen to own the patents."

burmanm 2y ago

Where would you draw a line for "any real product" ? ARM for example doesn't actually produce any "real" (physical) product, but they certainly do research and produce technology for other companies to build products on. There's a lot of "on paper" companies around the world who actually do produce novel technologies even if they don't themselves create the end product, but instead sell their inventions to other parties.

wildrhythms 2y ago
This problem is already solved by a Patent License Agreement. I don't know why people think this is a difficult problem. It's not.
- MrDrMcCoy 2y ago
  It actually is a difficult problem. Not only could the patent holder want to charge too much for the license, they may not want to grant a license at all. The problem is that patent holders have a monopoly when they should not. Licensing should be compulsory, at reasonable rates.

marcosdumay 2y ago

So, no researcher can own a company. Why did everybody just accept the idea that what makes a troll is them having no product when the problem is clear the high costs of litigation and low quality of the patents (and the patents selection)? IBM is the largest and most destructive patent troll around. And all of that is just propaganda designed to make it and other companies like it rich.

MrDrMcCoy 2y ago
The problem with patents boils down to abuse of monopoly power. The solution is to take the monopoly away.