They see me trollin’, they hatin’. IP Lawyers can rest a little easier today, unless you’re an IP Plaintiff’s lawyer. If that’s the case, work just got a little bit more complicated.
Richard Mescher writes on Technologylawsource.com:
You received a threatening letter from what looks like a “patent troll” demanding a licensing fee and/or royalties but you can find little or no information about the party that sent the letter. The sending party may not even be the owner of record for the identified patent(s) at the USPTO. You may not even be able to determine whether or not the sending party is a patent troll. How do you identify who you are up against? A new online crowdsourcing tool, referred to as Trolling Effects, was launched on July 31, 2013 that provides a database of demand letters and other information that can help you identify patent trolls. The Trolling Effects database is available at www.trollingeffects.org.
I think this could have an increasingly interesting impact on how IP litigants and IP litigation as a whole proceeds into the future. There is no doubt that with the ever growing technological advances, IP is a bright future of the legal profession. It will be fun to watch how the technology impacts those who try to protect it. A real rise of the machines scenario.
Read the full article here: Crowdsourced database now available to help identify patent trolls | Technology Law Source.