Introduction and Commentary on NPE or Patent Trolls

Introduction and Commentary on NPE or Patent Trolls

This blog is going to introduce the concept of Non practicing entities (NPEs) also known as Patent trolls.

Patent trolls or non-practicing entities refers to certain companies or people that create patents with the main goal of earning the majority of their revenue from the licensing or enforcement of their patents. This is important because typically one would think that patents are made so that one can use the product to generate revenue but NPEs instead use the enforcement of the product, not the product itself to gain revenue.

NPEs are also called patent trolls because they can be controversial in several ways. Techtarget.com defines an NPE as “someone who holds a patent for a product or process but has no intentions of developing it” - doing so can actually be harmful to society if what is being patented can provide many benefits. The website also adds that “Patent trolls amass large numbers of patents with the intention of launching patent infringement suits against companies and individuals that they maintain have illegally used some element of something for which they hold the patent,” so it seems like NPEs have found a way to use the government patent regulation system to create their own business. Other types of non-practicing entities include universities and other research organizations and individual inventors lacking the resources to further develop something they have designed or created. 

My opinion on the NPE is that it is a creative way to seek an alternative source of revenue, and it makes logical sense that someone with a patent would maximize the possible avenues of revenue, not only for the patent, but the enforcement of it.