Patent trolls (the most successful ones, anyhow) practice Batsian Mimicry as a defensive strategy: they specifically try to look as much like a small inventor who's invention has been stolen by one or more bad actors. It is never simple to disrupt an evolutionary arms race.
> I imagine a simple addition to patent laws invalidating a patent if the holder does not commercialize it after a certain period should get rid of NPEs. Is it not that simple?
Are you aware of how long it takes drugs, for example, to get from the patent stage to the commercialization stage? I'm sure there are other obvious industries where this would be problematic to the normal way of doing business.
On a more broad note: is it good to require that all inventors directly commercialize their own inventions? At best, I think this is an open question.
The public good is a priority. The idea is that the invention is beneficial to the public. If somebody creates a good invention but deny it from the public, this patent should not be in public interest anymore.
for about 15 years.. After 15 years the public can make use of the invention without paying a penny. How it is not in publics interest?
Patent law already handles this providing pharma patents additional protection time for regulatory delays.
Not because those are hard to differentiate logically, but because one side is all about manipulating the legal system while the other has no knowledge of it nor funds with which to navigate it. Also, the system is supposed to protect the latter from big corporate legal departments that want to steal his idea. It's a hard problem because it's profitable for bad actors to get wrong decisions made.
OK...
> we have a number of our own patents that we employ defensively to make sure we can continue to run our business securely.
Huh? This doesn't support the beginning of the sentence at all. If your only use of patents is defensive, then the system is all cost and no benefit to you. Getting rid of the system would give you all of the "benefits" you currently enjoy. What value are you seeing?
That's not strictly speaking true.
Having and using defensive patents has the advantage of disadvantaging competitors who don't have defensive patents but wish they did.
(Not that this is necessarily what djk44 would like to state as his reason for seeing benefits, just as a general fact)
This is not a compelling argument that the system has any value. "Sure, it's destroying value at our company, but that's fine because it's destroying even more value across the street!"
You don’t necessarily have to draw the line. One potential legislative solution would be to simply throw up our hands, admit we can’t stop one without stopping the other, then deliberately choose to sacrifice the (vanishingly small number of) good actors in order to get rid of the huge number of bad actors.
How many lone garage inventors are out there fighting big companies over their legit inventions vs. the number of ridiculous patent troll cases?
At least one thing about the US legal system encourages patent trolls as compared with other countries: the US does not have the rule that many other countries have, that the loser of a lawsuit pays the winner's court costs. This affects many areas of US law, not just patent trolls.
I doubt there are legislative fixes that won't make things worse - perhaps We can only hope for sound and robust rulings from engaged and informed judges.
(don't laugh)
In reality, looser-pays is usually more subtle, the winner is typically awarded only some standard rate that good lawyers don’t charge, but it seems sufficient for deterrence nonetheless.
I suppose there are sneaky ways around this, such as marketing a product that features the patent but is otherwise inadequate.
Never underestimate the resourcefulness of patent trolls