D.C. Appeals Court Deems Troll Lawsuit Tactic ‘Unfair’

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that bundling dozens of Internet users into a single lawsuit in order to obtain their identities is an unfair use of the legal process, a decision that the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Parker Higgins says deals a major blow to copyright trolls. Firms whose business model is based on purchasing patents, then suing hundreds or thousands of other companies or individuals in hopes of scoring settlements with a percentage, often use the bundling tactic to pursue the simultaneous cases. The judges wrote in their ruling that the tactic, used by appellee AF Holdings, was nothing more than a ploy to “manipulate judicial procedures to serve their own improper ends.”