A few years ago, a friend developed an idea for an invention that would be a great improvement over the products currently on the market. Naturally, she immediately hired a patent lawyer to help her protect her intellectual property. This happened more than 5 years ago. And, though many of you are just like my friend, you are facing something that she never did: patent trolls.
If you’ve never heard the about “patent trolls” before, as Jeremy Quittner discusses, they are entities that “buy up dormant or unused patents with no other goal than to engage real companies in lawsuits.” To stop these entities from dampening innovation by intimidating inventors (especially small businesses that can hardly afford to spend years fighting a lawsuit with a patent troll), Congress is working on legislation that will make it harder for these trolls to prevail in court. Seeing that it is not always easy to determine who is a troll and who isn't, there is a concern can that these new laws would make it difficult for small business owners to bring their own lawsuits against those who infringe on their patents.
What is clear is that patent law is in a state of flux so those of you who have inventions you want to bring to market should proceed carefully.
