patent troll

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English

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WOTD – 26 April 2020

Etymology

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From patent + troll (“in folklore, a grotesque humanoid creature living in caves or hills, or under bridges”), a reference to trolls in folktales who block the path of travellers or threaten to harm them unless some payment is made.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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patent troll (plural patent trolls)

  1. (patent law, informal, derogatory) A company, person, etc., that owns and enforces patents in an aggressive and opportunistic manner, often with no intention of producing, marketing, or promoting the subjects of the patents.
    • 1990, William P. Streng, Allen D. Wilcox, editors, Doing Business in China: (People’s Republic of China), volume 2, New York, N.Y.: Matthew Bender, →ISBN, page 278:
      On one hand, the new law may intend to enhance the application of new technologies and discourage patent trolls. On the other hand, the new law attempts to further bring the Patent Law in line with the international treaties and laws in other areas (e.g., antimonopoly law).
    • 1992, Roger M. Milgrim, Milgrim on Trade Secrets, volume 2, Newark, N.J.: LexisNexis, →ISBN:
      So favorable was the Federal Circuit's treatment of patents, in fact, that reinventing, nonmanufacturing speculators who would acquire one or more patents with a view toward using their leverage to reap large damages awards, leading to the sobriquet, patent "trolls," began to emerge as plaintiffs who would often put entire industries in patent peril. Thus was born (or became more common) the "patentee" who neither invented nor practiced the subject matter of its invention, but rather, sought to profit by licensing its patent under the threat of litigation, injunctive relief and substantial damages in the propatent climate that the Federal Circuit's views had created.
    • 2006, Bruce [M.] Berman, “Roadblocks or Building Blocks?”, in Bruce Berman, editor, Making Innovation Pay: People Who Turn IP into Shareholder Value, Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 3:
      Most companies are reluctant to get the best return on their most valuable assets. [...] Being publicly branded a patent "troll" adds to the turmoil. Patent trolls are controversial not because of the destruction attributed to them, but because they strike at the heart of the complex relationship between innovation and commerce. The term has become synonymous with the unfair assertion of IP rights and extortion of damage payments.
    • 2006, Timothy S. Simcoe, “Open Standards and Intellectual Property Rights”, in Henry Chesbrough, Wim Vanhaverbeke, Joel West, editors, Open Innovation: Researching a New Paradigm, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, part II (Institutions Governing Open Innovation), page 175:
      Recently, firms that specialize in acquiring patents purely for litigation—often derided as ‘patent trolls’ by the targets of their lawsuits—have emerged as significant players in some technology markets.
    • 2008, Lindsay Moore, Lesley Craig, “The Law in Flux”, in Intellectual Capital in Enterprise Success: Strategy Revisited, Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, part II (The Changing Rules), page 54:
      During the early 21st century, a number of patent and licensing enforcement companies (PLECs), more commonly referred to as "patent trolls," emerged. Their only business is to acquire patents and then sue infringers.
    • 2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist‎[1], volume 407, number 8839, London: Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 March 2019, page 55:
      The solitary, lumbering trolls of Scandinavian mythology would sometimes be turned to stone by exposure to sunlight. Barack Obama is hoping that several measures announced on June 4th will have a similarly paralysing effect on their modern incarnation, the patent troll.
    • 2014 March 28, Robin Feldman, “Slowing the patent trolls”, in The New York Times‎[2], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 29 March 2014:
      Because software patents can cover vast areas of territory, they are the weapon of choice for "patent trolls": people or companies that hold patents but make no products, and bring patent-infringement lawsuits against companies that do make products, offering to settle for less than the cost of fighting the suit.

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Further reading

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