Trolls filed 40% of patent infringement lawsuits in 2011
2 02 2013Trolls have long been the standard villain in patent debates. Often little more than an empty office in East Texas, patent trolls produce no useful products themselves but earn millions of dollars by threatening patent lawsuits against productive companies. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that patent trolls are a serious and growing problem, but until recently there has been little hard data to back up the evidence.
A new study helps to fill the gap by providing systematic data on the growth of patent troll litigation. Robin Feldman, a professor at UC Hastings College of Law, teamed up with Lex Machina, a Stanford Law spinoff that collects data on patent litigation, to compile a systematic survey of patent litigation. Their results are striking: the fraction of lawsuits filed by troll-like entities grew from 22 percent in 2007 to 40 percent in 2011.
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