Patent Troll Firms ‘An Affront to American Ingenuity’

Patent troll lawsuits are “pure money plays,” and an “affront to American ingenuity [that] threatens our innovation-based economy,” the Progressive Policy Institute claims in a white paper that explains the current environment for patent litigation and urges left-leaning lawmakers to support efforts to curb incentives for such suits. The paper outlines how a surge in new patented technologies, uncertainty over the scope, strength and validity of patents, and the high, one-sided costs put on the defendant in litigation led to patent-assertion entities accounting for well over half of all patent cases in the U.S.