Patent Trolls: Conclusion & Opinion

Hello,

Since I had to make 6 blogs and 6 videos I figured that the last one should include a synopsis of what I learned in the past 5 from doing research on the subject of patent trolls and how they operate. In general, these trolls focus on buying up patents from innovators and either splitting profit or paying them off lump sum. Once they have the patent, they talk with the big name firms such as Google or Apple and try to get a licensing fee for the use of their patent. If these negotiations fail, the next step is to sue the firm outright. It can be difficult to win these cases for large tech firms because their patent has an earlier filing date and the technology they use sometimes clearly violates or infringes upon the patent. However, the legal bills from these cases can become astronomical as they move their way up the court system. Overall, 60 billion dollars annually are spent in concessions and legal costs which is money that could be better spent in research and development. Instead, many business strategies have been cut short because of a lack of profitability with a likely lawsuit hanging over their head. Though the White House and Congress have been discussing ways to change the legal system, people should be paid for their innovation, I think the main issue are the trolls grabbing at each patent likely to be infringed as they go.