Written by: Bruce Itchkawitz
Publication: Orange County Business Journal, General Counsel Awards Supplement
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The onslaught of non-practicing entities, or “patent trolls,” that aggressively leverage the high price of defending a patent infringement action in order to extract licensing fees, cost defendants and licensees $29 billion in 2011. The number of such lawsuits rose to 62% of all patent infringement cases filed in 2012. The economic drain on the targets of these troll lawsuits, U.S. companies that are actually marketing products and services, has focused attention on the inability of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to weed out overly broad patents, and it has bolstered criticism of the patent system for stifling innovation by granting improper exclusivity for less-than-inventive concepts.
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