The Rise Of Patent Hoarding Houses
from the how-does-this-help-innovation? dept
One thing we've noticed over the past few years is the rise of crazy patent lawsuit threats from little independent patent shops that had nothing do with any innovation whatsoever, but at some point bought up a few patents and started using them to force other companies into licensing deals. Here's an article looking at the rise of such patent shops that doesn't seem to question whether or not this is bad for encouraging innovation. They note that such licensing deals are a recent phenomenon, compared to years ago when tech companies were much more free in just licensing their patents to other companies rather than hoarding them or threatening litigation at every turn. It's worth noting, of course, that all of these companies seem to be staffed entirely by lawyers instead of techies.
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