Many organizations still remember the sting of being a victim of the dreaded patent trolls. Patents were granted to encourage, recognize, and reward innovation. Awarding the inventors with a well-defined degree of exclusivity for a period of time improves their chances of both financial reward and the recouping their initial investment. “Patent troll” is a derogatory term that describes a business or entity that uses patent infringement claims to win legal judgments or out-of-court settlements for profit using patent law outside its intended purpose. Speaking during an online Fireside Hangout talk on patent trolls, President Barack Obama stated these rogue figures and organizations fail to produce anything of value themselves. They’re just trying to essentially leverage and hijack somebody else’s idea and see if they can extort some money out of them. In 2013, it was reported that the number of lawsuits in just 2 years brought by this cottage industry had nearly tripled and accounted for 62% of all patent lawsuits in the U.S. All told, in 2019, the victims of patent trolls paid $29 billion, a 400% increase in less than 4 years, not to mention tens of billions of dollars lost in shareholder value.

To read the entire article https://www.dbta.com/BigDataQuarterly/Articles/The-Weaponization-of-Software-License-Audits-152208.aspx

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