University patent trolling is insidious and rampant, hiding behind a façade of public good
Barnett, Director of the Research Technology Enterprise Initiative at the University of Washington, 16
[Gerald, “How can universities demonstrate they aren’t patent trolls,” Research Enterprise, 12/06/16, https://researchenterprise.org/2016/12/06/working-through-an-old-oped-on-university-ownership-of-inventions/, accessed 7/17/24, GDI-JCR]
On the face of it, university administrators have adopted a simple variation of patent trolling. Rather than just acquiring patents with which to shake down industry–all very overt and unapologetic (and for which there is some degree of respect–at least these folks own their decisions), university administrators instead cover their actions with a moralizing rhetoric about the public good–meaning only that they would rather sign a petty monopoly deal first and give the right to shake down industry to their monopoly partner (and that’s what many university exclusive patent licenses do–it’s in their templates). If nothing happens with their patents–no licenses or an exclusive license that comes to nothing–and industry uses an invention that crosses into a university’s patent claims, then with a spout of moral indignation and a nonsensical fuss about “protecting the public” (from what? from actual product in use?), the university switches into patent troll mode and sues whomever it can if it can’t get an abetting exclusive licensee=assignee to do the suing for it.