Rule 84 and Patent Trolls

Inside Council reported last month that The Judicial Conference of the U.S. has approved the elimination of Federal Rule 84. This is a small procedural change, but may have a large-sized effect on patent trolls that mass-file suits.

The idea is to eliminate a simplification that is being abused. Form 18 provided a "bare bones" complaint structure in which plaintiffs in patent infringement cases could just state that the defendant was infringing a patent. Under the new rules, the plaintiff will need to describe how the defendant is committing infringement. For a standard patent case this change doesn't affect things much, since most patent cases describe specific acts of infringement. However, patent trolls currently may file massive numbers of suits, each simply claiming that some infringement happened, without providing specific descriptions. The troll is most interested in getting settlements as quickly as possible, so files the most bare-bones and quickest cases possible. If the troll is required to investigate the companies it wants to sue in order to provide a specific description for each suit then the cost of mass suing goes way up and there's less incentive to shotgun lawsuits around.

(Thanks to Greg Aharonian of PATNEWS for the initial pointer.)