Trolls aren’t harmed by the Alice cases – inventors are
Mark A. Lemley and Samantha Zyontz, 2021 – *William H. Neukom Professor, Stanford Law School and **Research Fellow, Intellectual Property, Stanford Law School. “Does Alice Target Patent Trolls?” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 3/16, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jels.12275 //DH
On the other hand, the pro-Alice narrative that it is enabling quick and cheap invalidations of abusive patent troll cases is not fully borne out either. Although PAE and non-individual NPE patents are somewhat more likely to fail under Alice than practicing entity patents, the difference is not statistically significant. A large fraction of practicing entity patents in the software/IT industry are invalidated too. The biggest effect is on a group that has not received as much attention in the Alice debates: individual inventors and inventor-started companies, both of which fare quite poorly under Alice.94 That could be a good thing (if we think those suits are on weak patents or are overclaiming) or a bad thing (if it reflects something other than the merits). Certainly, some individual inventors have felt that they are not faring well at the patent office and some in Congress seem to be listening. In December 2019, a new House bill (the Inventor Rights Act) was introduced with the intent of strengthening individual inventor patent rights.95