As you all know, Irreal doesn’t think very highly of patent trolls. Of course, nobody (except patent trolls) thinks very highly of them. Some organisms that might be characterized as parasitical actually enjoy a symbiotic relationship with their hosts. Patent trolls, however, are simply parasites. Full stop. They’re scum that bring nothing but harm to the society they infect.
Their means of entry into the host is always the same. They leverage the fact that it’s always cheaper to settle a bogus patent claim than to defend against it. That’s true even if the victim wins. What can be done? A good start would be to make the loser pay all the costs. Of course, the pathogens known as non-practising entities would doubtless evolve to leverage that defense too.
Washington State is pushing their own solution. They’ve passed a law outlawing bad faith patent claims and are suing Landmark Technology for patent trolling. Irreal wishes them luck but as the article says, they have their work cut out for them. The courts have set a very high bar to establish that a patent claim is in bad faith and there are constitutional issues with seeking to limit legal regress. Still, Landmark’s claim is extraordinarily weak—anyone with a commercial Website could be said to be in violation—and experts say it would certainly be invalidated if litigated.
One can only hope that Landmark will decide to sue Cloudflare. They know how to deal with patent trolls. As I said before, these trolls and the bridges they hide under need to be smashed to pieces. More companies should man up and follow Cloudflare’s example.