The most successful patent trolls tend to be those with the sharpest noses for weakness. They sniff out low quality patents and hit legitimate businesses where they’re vulnerable in order to make money without doing the actual work of innovation.
Unfortunately, this problem isn’t getting any better. More than six times as many patent lawsuits are filed today than in 1980 and Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs) currently drive over 84 percent of patent litigation in the U.S. There are a number of factors behind the rise in power and number of patent trolls. One of the most significant, if under-discussed, is the convergence of commoditized computing technology utilized by almost every software-dependent company.