NPEs + Patent Trolls (Part 1)

Some people or companies that hold a patent for a certain invention or technology do not actually produce these products. This becomes an issue when they try to gain money through enforcement of their patent rights against the people who actually try to produce these technologies.

Such people are categorized as non-practicing entities (NPEs), or sometimes patent trolls. And I can't introduce a topic without providing a more formal definition first, so that's what I'll be starting off with. 

From my research, I've found a variety of definitions for NPEs. One source defines NPEs as "an entity that earns or plans to earn the majority of its revenue from the licensing or enforcement of its patents." Another source defines an NPE as "a patent owner who does not manufacture or use the patented invention, but rather than abandoning the right to exclude, an NPE seeks to enforce its right through the negotiation of licenses and litigation." So in summary, NPEs are those who hold a patent and do not produce the patented technology. 

However, we can't say that all people who are of this category are necessarily "trolls" or intentionally bad. This could just be a result of the NPEs inability to produce or manufacture the patented technology, such as a lack of the funds or the resources to do so. 
Sometimes the inventors of a patented technology can choose to sell their patents or give licenses to manufacturers to allow their technology to be produced without infringing on their patent rights, which I believe is the right thing to do in such a situation. 

However, NPEs become a problem when they intentionally file and collect patents just for the goal of using these patents to gain payment for merely owning these patents, and this is where the term patent troll comes in. I'll talk more about patent trolls and the negative consequences of their patent litigations in the next post.