申論題

 Last February during his Fireside Hangout, President Obama explained that patent trolls (known more formally as Patent Assertion Entities, or PAEs) “don’t actually produce anything themselves. They’re just trying to essentially leverage and hijack somebody else’s idea and see if they can extort some money out of them.” This type of abusive patent litigation is a major problem. 

 It’s also important to know what we’re not talking about here. We aren’t trying to make it harder to pursue legitimate intellectual property rights, or vigorously defend valid patents. Indeed, the United States has the best intellectual property protections in the world, and our system rightly ensures that these innovators are compensated for their creativity. The problem is when rogue companies make a business model out of exploiting and abusing the system, using it not to protect invention but to bring frivolous lawsuits to extract settlements from companies trying to serve American consumers. Bad patents in the system (such as those issued with broad or vague language) only compound the problem, and the issue extends far beyond any one industry.