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US Patent Trolling Costs $29 Billion a Year
New submitter Bismillah writes "This piece of research from Boston University seems to put an end to claims that patent trolling is 'socially valuable,' and instead is a social loss. 'We estimate that firms accrued $29 billion of direct costs in 2011. Moreover, although large firms accrued over half of direct costs, most of the defendants were small or medium-sized firms, indicating that [non-practicing entities] are not just a problem for large firms.' The total cost to society could be around $80 billion, according to the researchers. What's more, the costs have gone up fourfold since 2005."
'We estimate that firms accrued $29 billion of direct costs in 2011'
not the law firms.
If patent litigation was limited to inventors and the users of the inventions, and commodities derivatives were limited to actual producers and consumers, I suspect we would see a sudden reduction in income inequality. But it isn't going to happen, because the accumulation of wealth with the entrepreneurs gives them too much control over law and its enforcement.
(I am using entrepreneur in the literal sense of a middleman who seeks to profit without adding value; its meaning has been extended to "people who start productive businesses", which is part of the devaluation of linguistic currency that has helped getting us into this mess.)
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The patent trolling industry is worth £29 billion a year??? We must protect this vital industry - just think of the loss to the economy if anything happened to it.
Former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold, who now heads up the controversial Intellectual Ventures patent rights company, told the All Things Digital conference two weeks ago that "I was never a popular kid in class".
"I'm not going to be popular in this class."
Maybe if he spent $250 and bought a freakin vowel he'd have a better shot.
There are many reasons why small businesses don't start; the vague threat of patent trolling is WAY down that list. In fact I'd go as far as to say anyone worried about this before even starting a business is an idiot, so those businesses were probably better of not starting anyway.
I guess I'm an idiot then... every time I think of turning an idea into a little bit of an extra revenue generator for myself my second thought is that somebody from the US will just sue me and it's not worth that.
I'm in agreement with you. But I'm posting as AC, for a variety of reasons. Namely, I am a patent attorney. I specialize in software patents and handle both prosecution and litigation. I also used to be a software developer, so I'm sensitive to the problems that software patents can cause.
So, with that being said I might be a little biased, but the reality is that I think most people would have way less problems with software patents if there were no more NPEs. The vast majority of patent litigation in the electronics/software industry is done by NPEs. While it does happen, you don't generally see the big firms suing the little guys. They typically sue each other, see,e.g.,Google, MSFT, Apple, and Samsung. If they want to see each other, who cares.
I think for there to be a workable NPE rule, you would have to limit the assignment of patents. It would be too unworkable to determine whether the company "practices" the patents. It would leave too much to interpretation. Moreover, it would be used to limit the scope of the patent to the items being practiced, which is not the idea of a patent. My rule would work like this:
1. Can only reassign in cases where your company or line of business is being sold
2. For a company to assert a patent they must show revenues from sales (other than licensing revenues)
3. You are on the hook for Attorney fees if Def wins on non-infringement (invalidity is more tricky, since its somewhat of a crapshoot anyway)
3. There would be an exception would for the original inventor/assignee, who need not show anything (they could essenttially by an NPE, if they wanted). They would still be on the hook for Attorney fees.
These are simple black letter rules, that would probably stop the vast majority of NPE suits.
There are a few problems in your line of thinking:
1. You seem to think that "ideas" are somehow unique enough that only one person can ever think of them and all others can only acquire the same by "stealing".
2. You seem to think that any great new ideas that have not yet been implemented are "new ideas".
The amount of registered IP today probably covers nearly anything anyone could possible come up with, unique or not, just by the mere fact that ideas are inherently very generic and most registered IPs are very badly evaluated.
Anyone talking about "intellectual PROPERTY" or "innovating" by registering new IP, makes me sick. Turning intellectual products into property is the death of intellectual innovation, and anyone that thinks otherwise has deluded themselves or hasn't thought it through.
Innovation would happen when LOTS of people innovated using the SAME intellectual product. Then there would be competition. Customers could choose considering things like price and quality. This choice would drive implementers to innovate more than their competition. It would drive the whole economy.
Turning intellectual products into property denies it from the competition and effectively breaks the whole foundation of capitalism.
``OK, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah?''