"Fair Trolls" To Fight Patents With Patents

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday May 18, 2010 @08:01AM from the living-above-the-bridge dept.

FlorianMueller writes "Can a patent troll ever be fair? Yes. The primary concern over the upcoming Defensive Patent License — a GPL-like non-aggression pact for patents — is that it might be too defensive to have the desired impact. But actually the DPL could grow very big if one or more 'Fair Trolls' are brought to life and enforce patents against companies that don't support the DPL. The 'Fair Trolls' would commit to the DPL's terms, so they would have to leave other DPL backers alone. In exchange for this, the community would gladly feed them with patentable ideas (financial rewards for contributors included). Over time, staying outside the DPL alliance would become a costly choice for companies whose products might infringe patents. The bigger the DPL pool gets, the more valuable it becomes to its members. The more aggressive the Fair Trolls are, the better for the cause."

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In order to stay competitive, you have to join... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-05-18 08:10 · Score: 3, Interesting

So imagine you're a small-time inventor. You come up with something cool, which unfortunately infringes on a few common-sense patents that the DPL has pre-emptively snatched up (to keep them out of the hands of the actually evil trolls).
Do you have to commit your patent to the DPL to keep them from suing you? And in return, they'll give you a cut of the profits? That sounds...well, it's starting to sound evil. Less evil, but still evil.