Comment by BrenBarn
11 hours ago
It's a factor, but I also wonder whether the key morpheme there isn't the "mega" in "megacorps". If, say, entity A attempting to enforce IP against entity B had to pay fees proportional to the size ratio (e.g., Megacorp enforcing against Little Joe's Software requires a $1 billion fee from Megacorp), things would be different.
The problem there is identifying the relevant entity, and I think that is the key. And it's not just a problem with IP, it's a problem with all property: it's just too easy for "real" beneficial ownership to be hidden so that penalties and enforcement can be accurately targeted at big market players. A few well-targeted such actions could loosen things up a lot.
Just ignore the size of the plaintiff and make everything depend on the size of the defendant. Is the defendant a huge megacorp? Make every inference against them. Is it a tiny small business? Give them every benefit of the doubt.
Then if megacorp tries to set up a tiny shell company to do their dirty work, you just ignore the shell company and sue the megacorp. Whereas if something is actually a small business, there is no megacorp hiding anywhere behind it.