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Most Software Patent Trolls Lose Lawsuits
An anonymous reader writes "A new study is out concerning patent trolls and software patents, which found the rather surprising news that the most litigated patents tend to lose nearly 90% of the time. When broken down into different categories, patent trolls and software patents lose their lawsuits most often. While some may suggest this means 'the system is working,' that's not really true. The data suggests that most companies, when threatened with a lawsuit, end up settling or licensing to avoid the high costs of litigating. But the fact that so few software patents and patent trolls do well at trial may be more incentive to fight back. Either way, what does seem pretty obvious is that all those ridiculous patents you see in patent lawsuits are, in fact, bad patents."
No.
The underlying problems are twofold.
First, that a major number of patents are being granted that never should have been granted. Either because they are overworked, or because they are not correctly able to evaluate patents due to lack of training in the fields they are analyzing, or because they have been indoctrinated into a "just grant it the courts can sort it out later" (and a friend I know who works in the USPTO has been told that several times by his direct superiors over the years) mentality, the USPTO is granting things that never should have been granted.
Second, that the US court system is so fucked up and overburdened that most people who get hit with a troll lawsuit choose to settle, because fighting it is going to take years upon years, resources upon resources, and probably it's cheaper for them to just pay up. The legal system has ceased to be a venue where fair and equitable analysis of this sort of thing can take place, and instead is just a bludgeon for bullies with money and shyster lawyers willing to throw away the ethical codes to beat up on everyone else.
The data suggests that most companies, when threatened with a lawsuit, end up settling or licensing to avoid the high costs of litigating. But the fact that so few software patents and patent trolls do well at trial may be more incentive to fight back.
Of course we don't get a link to the paper itself, but the fact that where defendants decide their case is strong enough to go to trial, they tend to win, is not especially surprising.
"Troll" has a precise definition in their study - a non-practicising entity. So if the patent being sued over isn't used by the entity doing the suing in any of their products/etc, they are labelled a "patent troll" in the study.