On April 28, Google published a policy statement on the need for specific patent reforms. The statement was published by Google’s General Counsel, Halimah DeLaine Prado, and titled, Reforming the patent system to support American innovation. The statement is a notable read given that it issued from one of the largest Big Tech companies. The statement identifies four concrete areas where patent reform is purportedly required. Behind its prescriptions lingers its agenda—namely, that patents should have no value at all.

A recent post on this blog by Gaston Kroub discussed the ongoing patent war between Sonos and Google. The war started when Sonos accused Google of stealing its technology and infringing its patents. Since then, the war has broadened to multiple fronts. In one interesting twist, Google commenced its suit against Sonos asserting its own patents. Gaston’s commentary provides some useful insights for why Google would do this from strategic perspective. But in this post, we raise another question: is Google a patent troll?

Intel’s lawsuit takes aim at a new aspect of PAEs. That aspect is patent aggregation. Intel and Apple, two big-tech companies, are seeking a court ruling that would essentially hold that the very act of aggregating patents can give rise to antitrust violations. The implications of that could redound far beyond the alleged scourge of “patent trolls.” Indeed, the real targets of Intel’s lawsuit are not PAEs, but rather startups.

The Federal Circuit recently ruled on a case brought by Intellectual Ventures against Capital One ($COF).  The case is Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Financial Corp., 2018-1367 (Fed. Cir. Sep. 10, 2019).  While the underlying case arose out of IV’s assertion of its patents against Capital One, the appeal focuses on Capital One’s counterclaim that IV was an unlawful monopolist by aggregating a series of patents and asserting them through litigation.  Capital One lost the appeal.  But the question remains – how much teeth do antitrust counterclaims have against aggregating and enforcing patents through litigation?

Unified Patents recently released statistics on patent lawsuit filings.  The statistics show patent filings to be trending downwards fairly significantly from a peak in 2015.  Yet, the statistics also show that the individual inventor, asserting his or her own patent, is behind many patent suits.  Does that matter? 

Facebook ($FB) recently sued Blackberry ($BB) in the Northern District of California.  The move appears to be the latest salvo in the patent war heating up between the companies.  Yet, there are a few noteworthy aspects of Facebook’s suit.

IBM owns patents.  IBM sued Groupon for infringement of those patents.  IBM just won a jury verdict against Groupon for $82.5M.  Does that make IBM a patent troll? 

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) recently proposed an amendment to the Hatch-Waxman Act that would significantly upset the availability of petitions for inter partes review (IPR) for generic pharmaceutical companies.  Senator Hatch appears to believe that brand pharmaceutical companies deserve patents more than others.