Microsoft and Google jointly sue a patent troll who has sued 397 companies

Re:Microsoft and Google jointly sue a patent troll who has s... by DarkShikari on Thursday March 03, 2011 @05:54AM (#2283555)

A patent troll is a company who sues over at least one patent, but does not produce any products. As a result, the company cannot be threatened, because you cannot impact their "sales" in any way (e.g. by threatening with other patents) -- they have none. This is in contrast to the typical situation where two companies threaten each other with patents and then (usually) hammer out a cross-licensing deal.

This is an industry term, not an insult.

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Re:Microsoft and Google jointly sue a patent troll who has s... by Qz on Thursday March 03, 2011 @06:01AM (#2283569)

Pretty sure it started as an insult and became an industry term after the fact...

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Re:Microsoft and Google jointly sue a patent troll who has s... by joebadmo on Thursday March 03, 2011 @12:40PM (#2284938)

I hate the patent system as much as the next guy, but given what the patent system is meant to do, is there a way to distinguish between patent trolls and legitimate R&D firms that invest in technology and license the resulting patents, but don't actually productize themselves?

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Re:Microsoft and Google jointly sue a patent troll who has s... by lmkg on Thursday March 03, 2011 @03:19PM (#2285583)

Easy.

1) Do they perform original research themselves, or do they purchase patent rights? If they're not actually generating knowledge, then they're rent-seeking.

2) Do they generate income from licenses, or from lawsuits? Licensing IP is a voluntary transaction for both parties, so the people using the IP believe they're paying a fair cost for it. Lawsuits seek to extract maximum payoff through coercive means, usually because the free-market value of their IP would be vanishingly small.

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Re:Microsoft and Google jointly sue a patent troll who has s... by joebadmo on Thursday March 03, 2011 @03:51PM (#2285709)

Hm. Thanks!

I'll give you 1, but I'm not sure about 2. I guess if there's a pattern of lawsuits over licensing, but isn't a lawsuit what you resort to if someone uses your patented process without licensing?

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Re:Microsoft and Google jointly sue a patent troll who has s... by nandemo on Friday March 04, 2011 @12:58AM (#2287154)

What if a company who does research wants to sell its patent rights? Assuming patents are legitimate, that should be possible. Just as composers who sell rights to their songs.

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