The term “patent troll” tends to be thrown around a lot when talking about Apple, Samsung, et al.’s endless patent litigation, but there’s a big difference between companies trying to protect their patent profiles in court and the sort of trolls who exist for no other reason than to sue other companies for violations on overly broad patents that they aren’t using, stifling innovation (for example, notorious in-app patent troll Lodsys).
Reforms to the patent system to neuter patent trolls is something that have been called for for years, but it seems like President Obama is finally doing something. The White House has just announced that they are taking on the patent troll problem with seven new legislative proposal. But even if Congress won’t budge? Obama says he’s going to take five executive actions to thwart patent trolls, which he can do even without congressional approval.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a great write-up on what Obama intends to do about patent trolls. Here are the five executive actions the White House intends on taking:
Fix transparency: requiring patent owners to update records at the Patent Office with the patent’s real owner. Taking away secrecy takes away one of the patent troll’s favorite weapons.
Empower downstream users: ending the abuse associated with targeting end users, such as small businesses, startups, and even individuals who find themselves facing lawsuit threats and licensing demands for simply using everyday products. As the White House puts it: “End-users should not be subject to lawsuits for simply using a product as intended, and need an easier way to know their rights before entering into costly litigation or settlement.” We couldn’t agree more.
Expand dedicated outreach and study: working with members of the community, including third-party stakeholders, to address flaws in the system. This would include increasing scholarly programs at the Patent Office, something that if done right could have a direct positive effect on patent quality by bringing in big thinkers to address systemic problems at that office.
Strengthen enforcement of exclusion orders: streamlining procedures for imported goods that are found to infringe U.S. patents.
This is a really good start, and if the White House can get Congress to agree to the other seven proposals, patent trolls will have an even harder time pressing frivolous lawsuits. For example, one of the legislative proposals involves making it easier for courts to make losers pay when they bring frivolous lawsuits.
Source: EFF
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
3 responses to “President Obama Goes To War Against Patent Trolls”
“Let’s get real here. A patent is a constitutionally recognized license granted by the government to give the inventor monopoly rents for a limited period of time. This incentivizes the inventor to engage in risky R&D activities. Most patents do not provide significant revenues to the inventor. In fact, patents are most valuable as part of a portfolio where the patents evolve as part of a development activity, expanding the scope of protection over time. In any case, the monopoly rent that can be achieved must be guarded and protected, often at great cost in litigation. For small businesses, the cost of developing a valuable portfolio and then defending it is prohibitive. In many instances, small patent portfolios become stranded assets. The patent aggregators can provide a means to rescue these assets, providing a means to recycle development dollars, further encouraging innovation. In some cases patent aggregators can become developers of intellectual property themselves, especially if they become attuned to the needs of the market.
Large technology companies aggregate massive patent portfolios, then cross license among themselves, again to the detriment of the small technology companies. To try to distinguish the action of one class of patent aggregators to the benefit of another class of patent aggregators (the large tech companies) constitutes nothing more than theft by governmental fiat.”
I wrote a few months back to the white house regarding these exact companies and how apple and microsoft both were being sued by these patent trolls and how they are a drain of companies trying to actually make products. So you can thank me later tech world lol
I’m going to go on a limb and assume you are or like patent trolls?
Fact, MOST patent trolls buyout patents, and pay pennies to the inventor.. They rarely offer residual proceeds, getting nothing of the proceeds from the resulting lawsuits. The lawyers make all the money.. So, while you seem to think you’re defending the little guy, in reality, you’re just lining the shell company lawyers pockets.
The reality is we need to limit resale of patents, and force patent owners to produce or have functional products in market AND force a minimum royalty from all sales to original patent owners products sold or lawsuits won based on said patents. The patent system was supposed to help inventors and companies with products protect themselves. It’s skewed waaay beyond that.
Now it’s either a money machine simply based on suing or blocking competitors products.