What is a patent troll? Patent troll review

Since they have no physical business, they are also called NPE (Non-Practicing Entities) internationally. Intellectual Ventures, Interdigital, Acacai, etc. are all well-known among them.

Patent wars are a common business practice. In 1993, the United States used the term patent troll to describe companies that actively initiate patent infringement lawsuits.

Interpretation

Patent trolls refer to professional companies or groups that do not manufacture patented products or provide patent services, but purchase the ownership or right to use patents from other companies, research institutions or individual inventors, and then make huge profits through patent litigation. Originated in the United States in 1993, it was first used to describe companies that actively initiate patent infringement lawsuits. Such patent companies often have a strong parasitic flavor. As of 2008, the United States is one of the countries with the most patent disputes in the world, with more than 2,400 patent litigation cases. According to a survey by Patent Freedom in the United States, as of April 1, 2010, there were more than 325 patent troll companies in the United States, most of which involved semiconductors, software applications, etc.

feature

Malicious patent trolls have the following characteristics:

• We do not produce our own products

• Filing patent lawsuits or threatening to file patent lawsuits even though they know the odds of winning are slim, and taking advantage of the defendant’s unwillingness to spend high litigation costs to force the defendant to pay a settlement

Origin of the noun

In 2001, Techsearch and its lawyer Raymond Niro launched a patent lawsuit against Intel. At that time, Intel's deputy general counsel Peter Detkin used the term Patent Troll to describe Techsearch and Raymond Niro, and later referred to a company that specializes in purchasing patent rights from inventors at low prices. The so-called patent trolls are obviously here for money. Detkin also used the term "patent extortionist" to describe those who sued Intel for patent infringement. A typical patent infringement lawsuit, even if it is a winning case, costs more than one million US dollars.

Cause

The original intention of patents was to stimulate the development of knowledge industries and enable other companies to create more innovative designs.

But in many cases, patent applications are not for the purpose of making related products, but to prevent others from using similar technologies to make related products. For example, there are many ways to make a certain product, but a company patents all of them, and then only uses one of them to make related products, so other companies cannot use any of them to make their products.

Patent trolls are mainly caused by loopholes in the patent mechanism, such as patents that are similar or duplicated to existing patents, patents that are vague but still approved, and patent applications that have been submitted but are too large to be reviewed. According to data from 2004, a typical patent infringement lawsuit costs one million US dollars or more before the lawsuit begins, and even if the case is won, it will cost two and a half million US dollars or more.

The main purpose of patent trolls to acquire patents is to sue other technology companies for patent infringement. In addition, the difficulty of predicting court rulings and the huge costs and risks have led to the victimized companies preferring to pay compensation, which is also one of the reasons that encourage patent trolls.

Famous Patent Troll Cases

• In 1995, Pitney Bowes sued HP for infringement of the first three of the seven "claims" of a patent applied for in 1982. On June 4, 2001, the two parties reached a settlement, and HP paid $400 million to the plaintiff. Pitney Bowes continued to sue Apple, Panasonic Electronics, Samsung and other eight electronics manufacturers for this patent.

• In 2001, Techsearch and its lawyer Raymond Niro launched a patent lawsuit against Intel. Peter Detkin, then Intel's deputy general counsel, used this term to describe Techsearch and Raymond Niro. Detkin also used "patent extortionist" to describe those who sued Intel for patent infringement.

• In 2006, Canadian BlackBerry maker RIM and California patent troll NTP, Inc. ended six years of litigation and reached a settlement, with BlackBerry paying $612.5 million.

• In 2015, Louis Vuitton sued a hair salon for infringing its patents with a brown checkered pattern on a stool and a shampoo chair. After a challenge was raised, the EU General Court cancelled the registered patent because the design was too ordinary and did not recognize it as an original design by any brand.