4 ms·
Don't most patent trolls purchase or license the patents they are suing with as opposed to actually filing them? That seems like a pretty big distinction.
by gaadd33 13y ago
Don't most patent trolls purchase or license the patents they are suing with as opposed to actually filing them? That seems like a pretty big distinction.
- mikeash 13y agoIf you rely on that, then you've made it fairly easy for a big company to steamroll over a legitimate small inventor, since they won't have the resources to compete with your legal team, and they can't sell the patent to someone who does have the resources since that person would then be labeled a troll.
- unclebucknasty 13y agoExactly this. This is really the way patents were intended to be used. I think the patent trolls have turned the word "patent" into a dirty word. But, they have a legitimate role in protecting ideas and thereby incentivizing innovation for inventors/actual creators. It's when trolls go off buying patents in order to charge a toll and/or threaten actual producers that it becomes a form of extortion and gets out of whack.
- roel_v 13y agoIf this Lonnie guy would sell his patents to somebody else, and they would sue Hasbro, would that make them 'patent trolls' then? Or what about if he dies and his children sue Hasbro? Does that make them 'patent trolls'?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]