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Whatever you may think of their patents or their strategy, is it fair to call Nokia a troll? Are they not actually manufacturing products which implement the p

• shmerl 13y ago
  Often the term "patent troll" is used to denote NPEs which don't produce any technology. However a broader meaning is simply extortionist / racketeer. Whether extortionist produces anything useful is already secondary. So I think it's proper to call patent aggressors trolls, especially when this aggression is directed simply to block competition. In Nokia case, their products are not harmed by VP8 in any way. They just picked up a pile of patents for the sole reason of attacking an open codec and to prevent its adoption. It's also probable that it's not even Nokia's own initiative, but someone's who is behind them. Using third party patent trolls to fight competition while staying in background to avoid attention is a common technique amongst patent aggressors known as patent privateering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_Privateer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_Privateer