The issue of whether intellectual property actions are “trolls” is by no means a new one, whether considering the now-well-established existence of patent trolls, the infamous “porn troll” or the Righthaven copyright claims. More recently, a wave of photo copyright claims against the media have been filed in the Southern District of New York, leading media entities to once again evaluate the costs of defending an action versus settling, sometimes independent of the merits.
Patent Troll Bills
In the patent arena, the concept of trolls is well-documented. On Dec. 9, 2013, the House passed the Innovation Act, H.R. 3309 (113th Cong., 2013-2014), a bill that makes numerous changes to U.S. patent law. The Innovation Act was motivated, in significant part, by concerns about “patent trolls.” The term “patent troll” is not subject to a uniform definition, and in common parlance, includes both those entities that try to claim ownership over basic (and unprotectable) inventions or otherwise assert overbroad or invalid claims, as well as those entities that obtain patents primarily for obtaining licensing fees (rather than practicing the patent to produce goods), sometimes referred to as “patent assertion entities.”
