Only the ones that got caught. ;0)

For the record, the “patent companies” are generally referred to as “patent trolls”.

The literature analogy is quite apt.

Thats really scummy, bordering on racketeering. Unfortunately the lawyers seem to run the world now (the US anyway). I would prefer a world run by engineers and innovators. Come back Victorians, all is forgiven.

They would also be very careful to avoid the larger companies who could fight back so that the patent wouldn’t lose it’s potency. Because once a larger company devoids the patent of any enforcement value, they had no leg to stand on other than a very forceful letter.

So here you have these companies attacking smaller companies to extract out of court settlements because they can’t really defend themselves. I remember it came to my attention because one small company who had been hassled several times (probably because he became known as an easy target) got tired of it. He somehow found out about other companies that were targeted similarly and got them to align together and fight back the main company trying to sue them for patent infringements. I wish I could remember the source, it was a very interesting read…

In any case, this certainly doesn’t foster innovation, it stifles it! What a waste of time and resources as a whole for society.

I personally know of one person who had a short term contract with a company that did just this. They had him scan through piles and piles of possible patents to see if he could quickly come up with infringements. No more than a few minutes per.

This was the first round, then they would bring it to the next round, and so on. With the eventual goal to make money. And he wasn’t exactly cheap either, so there is money being made there.