{5} Patent Trolls

A patent troll is a person or company that aggressively files for and enforces patents against one or more alleged infringers in an opportunistic or unduly excessive manner. The worst trolls often times have no intention of following through building or manufacturing or marketing the final product once they obtain the patent, much commonly known as a non-practicing entity (NPE). An example of a common type of troll in modern technology is a domain name troll who strategically registers desirable domain names.

President Obama spoke out on this issue on Feb 14, 2013 during a Fireside Hangout.
“They don’t actually produce anything themselves,” said Obama of patent trolls. “They’re just trying to essentially leverage and hijack somebody else’s idea and see if they can extort some money out of them.”

While patent trolls defend themselves by labeling themselves as the evening field between large tech companies and small time inventors who can not promote or market their product or idea as well, the trolls are finding themselves more and more reaping in large sums of money from the lawsuits themselves and barring innovative creation--than helping it grow. In my opinion patent trolls have become a major impediment to technology startups who constantly have to be on the defense from other companies suing them for infringement. 

If you aren't using your idea, why not let someone else build upon it and put in the work that you aren't will to put! Huh trolls?