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November 15, 2011

The Troll Toll

Corporate apologist PC World patronizes its techno-peon readership while appreciating those that butter its bread - its advertisers. "Patents are a touchy subject lately thanks to all the litigation going on over software patents. This is particularly true in the mobile arena, where companies including Apple and Microsoft have been especially enthusiastic in their use of patents as leverage over their competitors. Of course, it's one thing for a company with products to protect to begin asserting patents against others; it's quite another, however, for companies to buy and assert patents without producing any goods of their own." PC World considers intellectual property rights an alienable right - copasetic for corporations, insufferable for individuals. PC World's punch line is positively delusional, as well as statistical fiction: "'Patent troll' is the name typically given to firms in this latter category, and - according to a new study - they're depriving technology businesses of more than $80 billion per year, to the detriment of small inventors and society as a whole." Because mega-corporations are inherently sociopaths incarnate, they won't license or buy patents from small inventors, instead preferring to legally crush like them bugs after stealing their ideas if an inventor tries to enforce a patent, so inventors must sell their inventions to "trolls" to realize any return.

Posted by Patent Hawk at November 15, 2011 10:48 PM | The Patent System