Patent Law Practice Center

A First Step Toward Solving the Patent Troll Problem

Years hence we may look back to Tuesday, January 14, 2014 as the turning point in the battle against abusive patent litigation. On January 14, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the settlement with one of the more notorious patent trolls. See NY Attorney General Settles Investigation into Patent Troll. This operator, MPHJ Technologies, is the owner of patents dealing with scanning technology and has claimed that thousands of small businesses infringe its patents. MPHJ has been one of the entities used by those in the anti-patent community as an example of a patent system run amok. At the end of the day, at least for those who carefully pay attention and look at the facts, this is not a story about the patent system in any way, shape or form. It is a story about a bully that engaged in reprehensible pre-litigation scare tactics.

Unfortunately, in his announcement of the settlement, Attorney General Schneiderman went too far in condemning legal patent activities in the name of defining what is a patent troll. Schneiderman said:

Patent trolls – sometimes referred to as “patent assertion entities” – are not innovators. They buy patents owned by others and then try to turn a profit by aggressively pursuing businesses they claim infringe the acquired patents. In virtually all cases, the businesses targeted by patent trolls did not copy other companies’ technology. Instead, patent trolls argue that that independently developed technology or business processes used by the target – and in some cases, everyday business activities – require a license linked to the troll’s patents.

The problem with this definition is that there is nothing illegal or immoral about acquiring patents, there is nothing illegal or immoral about enforcing patents and seeking out licensing agreements, and independent creation has never been a defense to patent infringement. Thus, it is unfortunate that legitimate patent activities that are clearly legal were at least to some extent compared with the deceitful activities of MPHJ.

(more…)