20 Jun Are Patent Trolls Bad?

There seems to be a movement afoot by our government to put the hammer down on “patent trolls.” These are institutions or funds which purchase patents with the intention of going after alleged infringers of those patents. There is story after story of groups which sued major software and other companies and obtained multi-hundred million dollar settlements. Indeed an entire industry of “intellectual property investment” has sprung up, there are now conferences on the subject and the like.

It appears the fear is that the “trolls” are bringing frivolous suits that defendants settle for significant nuisance value just to make the trolls go away. Of course our system has methods of punishment for lawyers and principals who bring lawsuits in bad faith with no legitimate claim. But now investigations are commencing into this industry to see what’s what. Of course some of our largest corporations, forced to defend these cases, would love to see the trolls disappear.

My thoughts are: 1) an actual inventor who thinks he has been infringed upon should be able to pursue that claim without feeling second guessed or questioned by the government, 2) someone willing to purchase a patent or finance a lawsuit that is legitimate against a company that is clearly infringing should be treated the same and 3) lawsuits that clearly have no merit should be dismissed and those who bring them appropriately punished for doing so. Thoughts?