I finally heard a good argument in support of "patent trolls" from a friend who has a few patents. It was something like this:
"The little guys can't fight legal battles with large corporations. So either you work with lawyers that are labeled patent trolls or you lose your patent by default by lack of defending it. Or you can go broke fighting in court."
It was the first time I had considered the possibility that there may be more at play here and that I couldn't see all sides clearly.
These lawyers, and more importantly, these shell companies, are being labeled as patent trolls because they're filing nonsense patents and then spraying nonsense lawsuits around to try to capture random prey. They're not the vanguard of "protecting the little guy."
The idea that making it easy for bad patents to be defended is somehow good is ridiculous. It ignores the possibility that the patent office, the legislature, and the courts need to improve so that good patents are protected but bad patents aren't a drain on society.
Of course the argument doesn't seem any good if you completely misunderstand it..
Let's say you're a small player with a legitimate patent. A huge entity is infringing. In order to make any money of your invention, you have to fight. But that can be very costly and risky. Instead, you sell your patent to someone specialized in this, a "patent troll". You get some money, they use their expertise to fight the big player.
Like selling someone's debt to a collector so at least you get some money.
"The little guys can't fight legal battles with large corporations. So either you work with lawyers that are labeled patent trolls or you lose your patent by default by lack of defending it. Or you can go broke fighting in court."
It was the first time I had considered the possibility that there may be more at play here and that I couldn't see all sides clearly.