Patent Troll Legislation

“Patent Troll Legislation—Swinging Too Far?” is an article written about the ongoing debate surrounding patent trolls and the methods being taken to combat them. The authors, Chrystal Mancuso-Smith, Brett Johnson, and Joseph G. Pia, are all experienced attorneys in the same law firm, Pia Anderson Dorius Reynard & Moss. Utilizing the experience they gained together in law, the authors seek to explore the misconceptions they feel surround current and future patent legislation and the attitudes taken towards “patent trolls.” The authors define patent trolls as, “persons or entities who own patents but, for whatever reason, do not presently use the patent for its intended purpose….but instead challenge the rights of others who may infringe on that

In the United States, NPEs have been in existence in some form since the first patent laws circa 1641 in Massachusetts. During this time the laws were created on a state by state basis. Eventually the various states agreed to cede power to the federal government and transfer the ability to regulate and legislate patents. This patent legislation of the past was comparatively lax next to current legislation being moved forward (27). The current pieces of legislation, such as the America Invents Act and Utah’s State Act, are meticulously analyzed by the authors in the article and the potential impact of them is evaluated. While Mancuso-Smith, Johnson, and Pia present valid points regarding the negative opinions many have of NPOs, they do not acknowledge the serious harm that can potentially arise from NPEs abusing the patents that they

After this introduction, the authors begin the main argumentative section of the article. The first misconception, according to the authors, that patent enforcement cases are new is directly challenged through historical evidence. Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, never physically created the product he invented and instead collected his livelihood from lawsuits against those infringing on his patent (26). This example directly refutes the notion that NPEs are a new phenomenon of the digital age while also supporting the greater underlying argument of the whole paper that NPEs are not only large companies but also individuals trying to make a living. The authors then address another misconceptions; the patents NPEs sue over are often trivial. According to research quoted in the article between 75 and 89 of the patents were not business method patents, but instead important communications and computers patents (27). The differences between these two are important in the legal world because business patents are patents on methods of doing business, which are intangible, while communications and computer patents are patents on important physical products. This key statistic invalidates another of the misconceptions that the authors