Attack Of The Patent Trolls

Litigation by patent trolls, often called Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs), has exploded in recent years:

Felix Salmon explains why this is a major problem:

Go to any technology conference these days, and you’re likely to find VCs who say that there are entire sectors they refuse to invest in, just because the waters are so troll-infested. Google and Apple might be able to do interesting things in wearable computing, for instance, but a single lawsuit could easily wipe out a startup in the same space — even if it was entirely frivolous. Even the 3D printing industry seems to have boiled down to a handful of companies, despite the fact that most of the patents in the space have expired, because it seems to be all to easy to get patents on tiny improvements to established technology. Technological innovation is increasingly a game that only the largest technology players can indulge…