It’s the patents, not patent-trolling companies (May 16, 2006)

Patent-troll companies have a business model where they acquire patents and then sue anyone who is using the patented idea. Such companies are popular to discuss lately.

Such companies are a symptom, not a problem, and they should be left alone. If a patent has been properly acquired, then its owner should be allowed to sue people who infringe on it. That is what a patent is. If someone sells their patent to another company who does the dirty work for them, then that is fine too---after all, we live in a specialized society, and not everyone is cut out to be lawyers.

The real problem is not patent-trolling companies, but bad patents themselves. In software in particular, where practically all businesses use copyright to cover their intellectual property, patents simply do not solve any real problem that we have.

In software, the best solution to dealing with patents is to abolish them. Leave patents for domains where they solve some problem.