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Yes, I've posted to this effect several times on HN, and the point generally encounters a fair amount of disagreement. I'm glad to see your post at the top of

Yes, I've posted to this effect several times on HN, and the point generally encounters a fair amount of disagreement. I'm glad to see your post at the top of this page. All trolls are NPEs, probably, but not all NPEs are trolls. Universities and independent inventors are generally NPEs, but AFAIK rarely engage in trolling behavior. The paradigmatic troll, I think, is the company suing people for infringing its scan-to-email patent. What we have here is (a) a patent that never should have been issued [0]; (b) an NPE suing defenseless small companies (c) whom it has no direct evidence are infringing. That, to me, is trolling. [0] I long for a ruling from the Supreme Court that makes the obviousness test meaningful again, since the Federal Circuit has so thoroughly gutted it. They had a perfect setup in Alice, but blew it, in my opinion, by making the patentable subject matter test the basis of their ruling (which I think will fail to give the lower courts any guidance they can understand). I would rather they had said that simply computerizing an existing manual process is, in 2014, thoroughly and unarguably obvious.

JoshTriplett 12y ago
> All trolls are NPEs, probably, but not all NPEs are trolls. I'd disagree with the characterization that all trolls are NPEs, as well. A company that technically produces a product implementing a patent, but nonetheless engages in trollish tactics (e.g. barratrous lawsuits inviting quick settlements for just under the cost to litigate; scattershot lawsuits against large portions of an industry; or in general tactics that stifle innovation and suppress development activities) still qualifies as a troll. And on the other hand, I wouldn't give universities and similar organizations a free pass to being patent-fueled leeches. Then again, I'm not convinced that there's such a thing as a legitimate patent lawsuit, either.
- rayiner 12y ago
  > And on the other hand, I wouldn't give universities and similar organizations a free pass to being patent-fueled leeches. Universities are a major source of the basic innovations that companies profit from commercializing. So who is leeching off who?
  - JoshTriplett 12y ago
    Every innovation builds on previous innovations; innovation does not happen in a vacuum.
    - logfromblammo 12y ago
      James Dyson would disagree.
    - rayiner 12y ago
      Sure, but there is a definite directionality to the overall idea flow here versus money flow. The ideas tend to flow from academia or R&D shops while most of the money flows to companies that take those ideas and build consumer products with them.
      - JoshTriplett 12y ago
        > academia or R&D shops Those are two very different things. And most of those R&D shops are attached to companies capable of doing something with the research. > while most of the money flows to companies that take those ideas and build consumer products with them If you're looking to come up with ideas and make money from them, as opposed to publishing them for general benefit, academia is the wrong place to do that. Universities aren't necessarily patent trolls, but university IP licensing departments are. (In any case, universities that make claims over the innovations of their students and faculty are broken to begin with, and I wouldn't blame a university for researchers who go off and create entities to license their own inventions that the university doesn't own.)
        rayiner 12y ago
        > Those are two very different things. And most of those R&D shops are attached to companies capable of doing something with the research. They're often similarly positioned vis-à-vis the patent system. E.g. even with patent protection, SRI got a pretty short end of the stick relative to Apple despite doing much of the real innovation behind Siri. > If you're looking to come up with ideas and make money from them, as opposed to publishing them for general benefit, academia is the wrong place to do that. Maybe there would be more innovation if that weren't the case. In any case, I find it hard to fault universities for deciding they don't want to do free R&D for industry. You probably disagree with this, but the platonic ideal of the patent system, for many contemporary proponents, is enabling a world where everyone who participates in the incremental process of innovation can get compensated for their contribution, instead of a windfall going to whoever takes the last step, or more typically, takes a proven idea and throws UX engineers and a big sales team at it.
- ScottBurson 12y ago
  > A company that technically produces a product implementing a patent, but nonetheless engages in trollish tactics still qualifies as a troll. That's certainly possible in principle, but it would be pretty stupid. One big advantage an NPE has in litigation is that it can't effectively be counter-sued: it has no business against which an injunction can be issued, and (if set up as a shell company, as trolls generally are) it has no assets that can be levied against. Furthermore, since it's not operating a business, it is exceedingly unlikely to be (even arguably) infringing any patents owned by its victims. For a company producing a product to expose itself to the risk of countersuit by trolling would be idiotic, particularly as it's completely unnecessary -- all it has to do is spin off a shell company.

JoshTriplett 12y ago

> All trolls are NPEs, probably, but not all NPEs are trolls. I'd disagree with the characterization that all trolls are NPEs, as well. A company that technically produces a product implementing a patent, but nonetheless engages in trollish tactics (e.g. barratrous lawsuits inviting quick settlements for just under the cost to litigate; scattershot lawsuits against large portions of an industry; or in general tactics that stifle innovation and suppress development activities) still qualifies as a troll. And on the other hand, I wouldn't give universities and similar organizations a free pass to being patent-fueled leeches. Then again, I'm not convinced that there's such a thing as a legitimate patent lawsuit, either.

rayiner 12y ago
> And on the other hand, I wouldn't give universities and similar organizations a free pass to being patent-fueled leeches. Universities are a major source of the basic innovations that companies profit from commercializing. So who is leeching off who?
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  Every innovation builds on previous innovations; innovation does not happen in a vacuum.
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    James Dyson would disagree.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    Sure, but there is a definite directionality to the overall idea flow here versus money flow. The ideas tend to flow from academia or R&D shops while most of the money flows to companies that take those ideas and build consumer products with them.
    - JoshTriplett 12y ago
      > academia or R&D shops Those are two very different things. And most of those R&D shops are attached to companies capable of doing something with the research. > while most of the money flows to companies that take those ideas and build consumer products with them If you're looking to come up with ideas and make money from them, as opposed to publishing them for general benefit, academia is the wrong place to do that. Universities aren't necessarily patent trolls, but university IP licensing departments are. (In any case, universities that make claims over the innovations of their students and faculty are broken to begin with, and I wouldn't blame a university for researchers who go off and create entities to license their own inventions that the university doesn't own.)
      - rayiner 12y ago
        > Those are two very different things. And most of those R&D shops are attached to companies capable of doing something with the research. They're often similarly positioned vis-à-vis the patent system. E.g. even with patent protection, SRI got a pretty short end of the stick relative to Apple despite doing much of the real innovation behind Siri. > If you're looking to come up with ideas and make money from them, as opposed to publishing them for general benefit, academia is the wrong place to do that. Maybe there would be more innovation if that weren't the case. In any case, I find it hard to fault universities for deciding they don't want to do free R&D for industry. You probably disagree with this, but the platonic ideal of the patent system, for many contemporary proponents, is enabling a world where everyone who participates in the incremental process of innovation can get compensated for their contribution, instead of a windfall going to whoever takes the last step, or more typically, takes a proven idea and throws UX engineers and a big sales team at it.
ScottBurson 12y ago
> A company that technically produces a product implementing a patent, but nonetheless engages in trollish tactics still qualifies as a troll. That's certainly possible in principle, but it would be pretty stupid. One big advantage an NPE has in litigation is that it can't effectively be counter-sued: it has no business against which an injunction can be issued, and (if set up as a shell company, as trolls generally are) it has no assets that can be levied against. Furthermore, since it's not operating a business, it is exceedingly unlikely to be (even arguably) infringing any patents owned by its victims. For a company producing a product to expose itself to the risk of countersuit by trolling would be idiotic, particularly as it's completely unnecessary -- all it has to do is spin off a shell company.