Friday food for thought: the trolls are taking over

If you’re not thinking about patent trolls yet, you probably should be. They’ve taken over the web. Well, they’ve taken over the patent corner of the blogosphere at least.

On PHOSITA, we’ve asked people to take a stab at defining the term and gave an example that, we think, highlights the difficulty of the exercise. Doug even asked whether Abe Lincoln was a troll. I’ve started to think that we might be stuck with an obscenity-style definition: you know ‘em when you see ‘em.

is enforcement in the absence of “working the invention” a bad thing?Dennis Crouch has now offered a definition of his own that’s sure to get folks talking. Importantly, Dennis asks the question — Is the troll’s activity (enforcing patent rights) bad?

That’s the real question. No matter how you define “patent trolls,” the real issue is whether the enforcement activity of the trolls is a bad thing. Is it an evil that must be stopped, or is it just the enforcement of a valid property right?

Perhaps we’ll learn a little more about the definition and the “is it a bad thing” question on June 15th when the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property tackles the issue in its next patent reform oversight hearing.