Patent Trolls: How Bad Is the Problem?
It’s bad. Popular Mechanics writes about the scourge of “non-practicing entities”, otherwise known less euphemistically as patent trolls:
Vague wording and flaws in the U.S. patent licensing rules helped to give rise to this breed of aggressively litigious patent-holding firms, according to James Bessen, a Boston University School of Law lecturer. These organizations have pressed hundreds of lawsuits against thousands of defendants over the past 20 years, and business is booming now more than ever. Bessen wanted to know just how big the problem was, and according to a recent study he co-authored, fighting these firms cost companies an estimated $500 billion from 1990 to 2010. How did things get this way? [emphasis added]
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