Quote:
Originally Posted by DaleDe
In principle you are right but the difference is that copyright is easier to define than patents. Original work in a copyright can be shown readily while often Patents claim original work but it turns out that is was not original at all, or it was obvious or should have been obvious. Thus a patent troll can get someone to issue them a patent that they should not have been able to obtain under the rules of patents. Then they use the suspect patent to exhort money.
Dale
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Most of the so-called "Patent Troll" corporations didn't invent anything! Instead, they acquire patent rights from inventors who have not been able to realize value from the patents. Then, rather than trying to build a product that embodies the technology in the patent, they sue existing businesses that may (or may not) be violating the patent.
There's nothing that is
necessarily wrong or unethical with this approach. Indeed, there are some notorious examples of small inventors whose patent rights were trampled on by GreatBigCorp (tm) who eventually won large judgements against the violators. Try looking up the case of the gentleman who invented and patented interval wipers -- in the late '50s or early 60s. He finally prevailed in his court case against every major auto manufacturer doing business in the US sometime in the late '80s or early '90s. The judgement was for hundreds of millions of dollars,
before punitive damages. It seems the car companies deliberately and willfully looked at his invention, said it was worthless, then ripped it off and featured it in a few gazillion automobiles.
All this while knowing full well that they were violating a legitimate patent!
The difference between a patent troll and a non-troll arises from things like the quality of the patents being asserted, and the degree to which the IP company is "for real." The ones who have given rise to the term patent troll have a tendency to assert patents that are dubious (at best). Their business model appears to be "make enough of a fuss that the target will settle with us, because that's cheaper than going to court -- but be very careful that the case never actually goes to court." The very worst of these companies deliberately avoid actually going to court exactly because they know (or fear) that the patent is bogus, and that the court will realize that!
The above description then gives rise to one obvious question: "How can we tell the difference between a probably-unethical patent troll and a thoroughly legitimate champion of the small inventor who is merely trying to make some money while serving the cause of justice?"
I'll pull on my academic hat, and say "Answering this important question is left as an exercise for the reader."
Xenophon