Patent Trolls Examples

As discussed in the previous post, patent trolls attempt to profit by exercising their patents on practicing entities.  In this post, I will be displaying a few examples of patent trolls, as well as some interesting facts about companies who have been affected by patent trolls.

Patent Troll                   Company/Affected Entity                        Patent(s) in Question
1. Intellect Wireless         11 different Mobile Companies              "Wireless Messaging Patent"

2. Blackboard Inc.           Desire2Learn                                "System and Method of online learning"

3. Digitude Innovations   Multiple Software Companies        Several purchased patents from Apple

4. Lodsys                         Multiple Software Developers        "Customer-based product design module"

Patent trolls often target very large businesses, and occur more frequently than one might think.  These companies spend countless dollars during these lawsuits and must employ many resources in developing prevention techniques.  The figures below reflect the amount of times each company was sued in 2013 due to patent trolls.

1. AT&T- 54 times
2. Google- 43 times
3. Verizon- 42 times
4. Apple- 41 times

As you can see, these companies are dealing with patent litigation almost nonstop, which is startling in my opinion.  These figures display the absolute need to reform patent litigation and possibly the patent system as a whole.  Let me know what you guys think!