Week 5 EOC: Patent Trolls

What is a Patent Troll?  Is it a disgustingly green monster covered in warts, that lives under a bridge, and assigns patents on the weekends?  Nope.  The exact definition for a "Patent Troll" is someone who sues for patent infringement, but who does not make or sell any products using the patented technology.  Are you scared yet?  Well you may not be, but "Patent Trolls" are scaring the pants off of many huge corporations.

The most infamous "Patent Troll" to date is a patent lawyer named Raymond E. Stauffer.  Mr. Stauffer became infamous when he was shopping at a New Jersey mall one day, simply shopping for bow ties at Brooks Brothers.  He noticed something interesting about the bow ties on display, they all had old patent numbers on their labels.  I can only imagine how many people looked at those old numbers and never gave it a second thought.  Where the company, employees, and most customers overlooked could eventually make Mr. Stauffer a very wealthy man.  Due to his profession's background he knew that the retailer would have to come out of pocket for violating a law that bands companies from marking products with old and invalided patent numbers.  He would have settled out of court for $25,000, but the retailer went to war with him; now he should be awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Since he fruitfull find, more than 300 lawsuits have been put together by similar "Patent Trolls", inspired by Mr. Stauffer." Coporations are spooked and many are being advised not to mark their items with any patent numbers at all to avoid similar law suits about items that "slipped through the crack." I applaud Mr. Stauffer for sticking it to the man.

 I think it is amazing that something so small and insignificant as patent numbers could cause such a scare in the corporate world and could be financially beneficial to a regular everyday consumer.  I am not surprised that the number of "Patent Troll" lawsuits has spiked, it even has me contimplating attempting such a lawsuit.  Why should we feel bad about a corporations losing money, because someone has an unfair advantage.  It happens to us, the consumer everyday.  Especially with the difficulty for a individual to obtain a patent for their amazing invention or work, while huge corporations hand out patents like its never going out of style.   So do your thing "Patent Trolls"; because in the recession our country is currently in, it feels good to know that the "little guy" won a battle or two.