

How “Patent Trolling” Taxes Innovation - cwan
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/07/11/how-patent-trolling-taxes-innovation/

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bryanlarsen
Notice this is a guest article, it isn't by the "freakonimists", Levitt &
Dubner. Levitt & Dubner had a chapter in their book which was glowing puff
piece about Intellectual Ventures. IV is perhaps the biggest patent troll of
all.

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api
IV is known for its glowing puff pieces. I saw one once in the Harvard
business review that stopped just short of actually giving fellatio.

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msg
Don't waste your time. This is a pretty crappy article. It will be old hat for
you if you've been following this area in any depth.

Misleading discussions: the proportion of patents that are overturned compared
to the number that aren't, what makes a bad patent bad, who files for patents,
what is a patent troll, who are the patent trolls.

Missing discussions: the distinction between software patents and non-software
patents, the consequences of in re Bilski, the proportion of software patents
vs non-software patents, the current misguided "reform" efforts in Congress,
the nuclear war in the mobile industry, Google vs. Oracle.

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AJ007
Lets talk about how the patent cartels suppress small companies in order to
dominate the entire computer and mobile hardware industry.

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monochromatic
Patent cartel? Got an example of this?

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georgemcbay
MPEG-LA?

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nate_meurer
Put that question mark away, and add suppression of competing technology to
the list of offenses.

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paulgb
It would be an interesting (albeit expensive) experiment for some VC to start
publicly and aggressively financing defence against patent troll attacks on
their portfolio companies. If trolls are after settlements and the VC sends
the message that they won't settle, trolls may leave their portfolio alone in
the long run.

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petegrif
This strategy may work for those cases where the troll has a claim of
questionable value but what about the cases where the troll holds a meaningful
patent and has a valid claim?

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paulgb
Then they're not a troll.

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petegrif
It would help if they characterized 'patent trolls' accurately. Their alleged
behavior is after all the subject of the piece.

