Comment by patentatt

Many of the troll cases actually do trace back to a small time inventor, very often a failed small startup. They then sell their patents to various intermediaries which winds up in the hands of a ‘troll.’ So the original inventor does get paid, even if it’s an NPE doing the actual litigation against the big companies. The reason these trolls are so abhorrent is that they seek to maximize their economic value in the patent by trying to extend it as far as they can go, which gives them a bad reputation, but they play an important role in the system which can reward small time inventors. Big companies don’t really buy patents from small inventors any more, so the only route to monetization for an invention is through NPEs.