Pointing the Troll Finger in the Correct Direction

Emory University dean/professor Timothy Holbrook has an op-ed piece up on CNN this week, talking about the patent troll problem. As I've argued in the past, litigating a patent does not make one inherently evil.

Holbrook points out that what he calls PAE's - patent-assertion entities - are often the only way for small businesses, start-ups, or non-profit inventors to get paid for their inventions. If you start from a premise that all patents everywhere are evil and shouldn't exist then I suppose that's a bad thing. But if you believe that people should be able to get compensation for inventions then there needs to be some mechanism to help that. As Holbrook puts it:

[abuses associated with trolls] are not troll problems; they are litigation and patent quality issues. Scapegoating trolls risks disrupting the useful compensatory purpose they serve and may cause unintended consequences in non-troll litigation.

He also notes that the sections of the current proposed anti-troll legislation that were intended to deal with the core issues of patent quality and litigation cost were removed. It's possible the Obama administration could create regulations that affect these important factors, but I'm not holding my breath.