In this first post I would like to introduce Patent Trolls, defining them and giving a few examples.
There are many names for Patent Trolls: Patent Holding Company (PHC), Patent Assertion Entity (PAE) and Non-Practicing Entity (NPE), but all of these differently named organizations all take part in the same practice: the enforcement of patent law on competitors' products that they themselves never intended to manufacture.
More simply put this means that a Patent Troll is any entity who acquires a patent either through the normal application process, or via acquisition from an inventor and sues other entities for infringing their patent even though they themselves never intended to produce the product having the qualities their patent protects. This can occur if a company doesn't have the necessary funds to carry through with a manufacturing plan, but in many cases these Patent Trolls have this type of activity in mind since the acquisition of the patent.
The five companies that are most frequently in these Patent Troll cases unsurprisingly are Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, AT&T and Dell. Some of the largest and most famous cases of patent infringement reach settlements upwards of a billion dollars! A few of the more famous examples are:
- Cystic Fibrosis Foundation v. Royalty Pharma with an award of $3.3 billion in 2014
- Carnegie Mellon University v. Marvell Technology with an award of $1.5 billion in 2014
- Apple v. Samsung with an award of $890 million in 2013.
That's all for this blog post, See you all soon in a second blog post continuing my discussion on Patent Trolls. Please view the video below for a conversation on the above!
Hey Oliviero,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I like that you thoroughly explained what patent trolls are and then introduced the five companies that have had the most patent troll cases. NPEs are a huge issue as companies are having to deal with these costly cases. Thanks for sharing, keep up the good work!
Oliviero,
ReplyDeleteGreat post on the awful entities that we call patent trolls. I still cannot believe that these entities exist when in all reality, they are accusing people of stealing ideas which they themselves did not even create (i.e. buying patents from other patents) These firms halt innovation and provide absolutely nothing to the community, but hey, I guess that they have to do what they have to do. I liked how you stated that the top 5 companies experience the most. Hopefully they have enough money to crush these trolls and not have to let them interfere with their innovation.
Cheers
Very informative post, Oliviero! Your post on patent trolls was by far the most comprehensive and analytical I've seen in this class. Not only did you give a high-level definition, you also included examples of popular patent trolls. Furthermore, you gave tangible details, facts, and statistics to support your claims and post. This differentiated you from other posts on the subject, who often only mentioned the definition. Good job!
ReplyDeleteGood job!