Patent trolls threaten technological innovations that create jobs and spur economic growth. They reap big money from pressing dubious charges of patent infringement against real innovators and job creators. And they’re doing it right here in Texas. They’ve found a welcoming court in Waco. It’s time to expose the shell companies hiding behind the hedges—hedge funds backed by private equity and foreign investors—and protect the true innovators and job creators central to jobs and the economy in Texas and across the United States.
WHAT IS A PATENT TROLL?
In Internet slang, trolling defines harassment with intent to do harm. Patent trolls harass real innovators with meritless litigation aimed at reaping big money from pressing questionable charges of patent infringement. They operate through shell companies to hide their identities, but what’s clear is that they do not research, develop, make, or sell anything related to the patents they are asserting in these lawsuits. The only people they’re hiring are their trial lawyers.
HOW DO PATENT TROLLS OPERATE?
Patent Trolls, or Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs), buy patents companies no longer want to keep, or buy patents from defunct companies. Then they bring or threaten meritless lawsuits against true innovators and job creators or try to force settlements by threatening massive and costly legal discovery proceedings. And they’re coming to file their lawsuits in Waco, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, even if their targets don’t have a connection to Waco.
WHO ARE THE REAL PATENT TROLLS?
Private equity investors, hedge funds, and foreign companies. They hide behind entities they create and then fund to buy patents and file meritless, harassing lawsuits. They want a big payday – either through legal settlement or court award – for doing nothing but filing these lawsuits. There are patent trolls who neither use nor intend to use the patents they wield in these legal actions. They target big technology companies, such as Intel, and pretend to represent small technology companies. The reality is they represent one more way in which hedge funds are taking from the true innovators and job creators who make real contributions to our economy and our society.
Get the facts: Join us to expose patent trolls.