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My definitions of "patent troll"
a) Somebody who makes patents for the sole purpose of profit, and with no intentions of making a product based off of the patent.

b) Somebody who abuses the leniency of the patent system to create patents that are so obvious they'd never hold up in a court of law - again, making money off of the patent system instead of from an invention.

In other words: Anybody who uses the patent system itself as a cash machine instead of making money from the products described in the patents.

If you invent something, you should be making money off of the invention, not the patent. IMHO the patent system is very broken because it is possible to create money irregardless of whether the invention really sees the light of day. That was never the way the patent system was supposed to be used.

And that's not the only problem - the patent system is also a legal weapon, used to threaten small businesses and individuals with.

I don't think the inventors of the patent system ever intended patents to work this way.

Patents are supposed to help innovation, not be used as weapons in court.
Posted by: CobraA1   Posted on: 11/06/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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Here we go again.... (NT)  Badgered | 11/06/06
Maybe Palm should just stall as much as possible untill the pantens are  DonnieBoy | 11/06/06
The problem with that strategy ...  mwagner@... | 11/09/06
Patent Pirates Call Their Victims Trolls  rjriley | 11/06/06
Patent Pirates Call Their Victims Trolls  rjriley | 11/06/06
let's make an example...  benitodarder | 11/07/06
That's going to be a hard sell among this crowd  James T. Kirk | 11/07/06
Come on, that's one of the oldest "scams" in the book  John Zern | 11/07/06
Why is patent troll hard to define?  bjornafreeman@... | 11/06/06
Some very good ideas for patent reform, some good first steps.  DonnieBoy | 11/06/06
But you must reward the risks too  John Zern | 11/07/06
Seems kinda vague to me  DarthRidiculous | 11/06/06
My definitions of "patent troll"  CobraA1 | 11/06/06
NTP are leeches......  linux for me | 11/07/06
All patent laws must die [nt]  Omch'Ar | 11/07/06
The problem with the system ...  mwagner@... | 11/09/06

What do you think?

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