Just who controls the patent system?

Do you know that there are over three hundred patent trolls? And together they owned about twenty thousand patents! What does it mean? It simply means they are the force to reckon with, and not the patent office! Well, the patent office (US) grants about a hundred and fifty thousand patents a year, but the patent trolls skimmed off the most important ones (those available for sale). The rest of the patents are kept in silos at universities and research institutions, and they will lay there gathering dust. With the bulk of the useful ones being in the hands of the trolls, it would mean that companies that have their own patents and are using them to make products have to be very careful, least they become the target of money extrication by the trolls. Even if you think you are safe using your own patents, you might eventually be made to pay because the trolls can exact you to pay for their license by threatening you in court for disputed infringements. They have the money and they have good lawyers and anybody standing in their way will be brought to their knees by a mere lawyer’s letter of demand. Nobody could afford to be targeted by the trolls. This is just how powerful they have become.

Understandably, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) are concerned. The very fact that the patent system was created to help people to come forward and have their inventions protected will ring hollow if the trolls have the upper hand. They are like the Mafia of the intellectual property world. If the situation gets out of hand, then nobody would be bothered to get their inventions registered. Industries would suffer. The world economy would suffer. Rest assured that more people would be brought to the courts for infringements, even if they did not infringe at all. Companies, big and small would not dare to innovate, and mankind will suffer even more. Already there is a prediction that the trolls will be targeting life sciences in future. They have been actively buying up all those bio-technology patents available from the market. With a shrinking budget, university research departments are quietly selling off quickly those patents just to bring in funds to continue research and developments. If you have been granted a patent, and that patent has a far reaching implication to the industry, then you can be sure that the trolls will call you up and offer you money that you can’t refuse! Such is the future and if you think that the trolls will sooner fade from the scene, you will be disappointed as there are more funds being channeled into new troll setups everyday! Our hope then will rest in the hands of USPTO who are reported to want to introduce new rulings to stamp out the influence of the patent trolls league. Will the good people succeed? Maybe it’s too late already! It is like asking if the authorities will ever get rid of the Mafias.