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Valve wins legal battle against patent troll Rothschild and associated companies (www.gamingonlinux.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/games@sh.itjust.works
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[–] 3 points 7 months ago* (2 children)

You don't know what patent trolling is.

You are describing patent enforcement.

Patent trolling is when a small company/firm solely, only exists as a kind of legal container that currently owns ... well, usually a broad array of all kinds of patents that they bought from some other person or company at some point.

They then go around and do nothing other than see who they can shakedown for money, via threatening all kinds of lawsuits, which would be extremely expensive and time consuming to fight, so most companies just fold and settle.

Nintendo suing Palworld over copyright and patents?

That's not patent trolling.

Yes, the existence of patents and how IP law works is a complex and contentious topic, in general.

But... patent trolling?

It is a specific thing that occurs because of the current state of IP laws in the US, and basically everyone from any kind of relevant and related academic and/or legal background agrees that it is terrible and Congress should really revamp the laws to at least specifically fix it.

Patent and IP law are complicated.

Patent trolling is completely negative.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Sitting on a patent, not implementing it, while also not allowing others to implement it, is a form of patent trolling.

    Hell I'd even go as far as to call what Qualcomm does with their 4G/5G patents, trolling (they basically offer to sell patent licensing but it's generally much more expensive to get the license AND develop+manufacture your own modem with it than to buy modems from Qcom directly, which is essentially stifling any potential innovation on the modem market).

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago*

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll

    You can argue whatever you want, the actual common definition of a patent troll is what I described, a person/entity that did not invent, but owns or purchases or otherwise legally acquires as many patents as they can, then goes around trying to sue or legally threaten people they claim are using it... as a form of making money for themselves.

    Patent trolls operate much like any other company that is protecting and aggressively exploiting a patent portfolio. However, their focus is on obtaining additional money from existing uses, not from seeking out new applications for the technology.

    The fact stands that you in your original comment just broadly described basically the entire concept of patents and patent law existing... as a specific subset of activity enabled by that system.

    Which you described as 'not completely negative'.

    No, it is completely negative, it is a form of parasitic wealth accumulation only available to the wealthy, and it only has negative effects for everyone other than the patent troll.

    You can just make up a new colloquial meaning and sure, that's valid in the sense that the meanings of words change overtime... but like, this is specific, technical/legal/academic term with specific meaning.

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