Supreme Court Ruling Supports Apple's Long-Running Fight Against Patent Trolls

Provide patent trolls or companies a set period of time to productise their patents or they lose them. Problem solved.

Good move. The patent system needs to be overhauled in general, they also need to address siting on patents with no intent of ever implementing . Stops innovation .

About time, these most often ridiculous claims should be vanished. B.t.w., not only against patent trolls but also against other general nature patents from other companies (even Apple).
Even for rightful patents, there should be a reasonable period of time, after this period, the patient should no longer be valid. It completely stupid, some companies claiming millions and sometimes billions for some basic stuff "invented" in the eighties. You cannot keep holding a claim for ever for some simple protocol just because you were the first.

we should just pick a time, like 16 years, and then after than the patent is not longer valid (hint, they expire after 16 years).

Apple are the biggest patent trolls on the planet.

Whoever gains the patent, or even just files it, should be under no obligation to use it or not. This is not the purpose of the patent system.

What IS the issue, I believe, is in abusing your position as the patent holder, and THAT is what can stymie use of patents and the other problems already listed elsewhere.

Part of this can be addressed by not giving patents out for applications that are questionable even to a lay person like me... like patenting some part of the human or any other genome for example!

Apple are the biggest patent trolls on the planet.

No. The worst patent trolls ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll') are the "non-practicing entities" (NPEs) that don't actually produce anything, but collect patents (e.g. by buying them in bankruptcy fire sales) and hoard them against the day that someone actually puts in the work and investment to produce a successful product - then pop out from under the bridge and demand license fees or launch lawsuits. Litigation and licensing is a NPEs sole business model.

Some people's definition of patent troll specifically refers to NPEs.

We can question the validity of the patents they try to assert against (e.g.) Samsung, we can question whether anybody should have software patents, but at least Apple actually makes and sells products and services incorporating their patents and can plausibly claim to be protecting their investment in R&D when they sue. Apple occasionally gets a dose of their own medicine when they violate someone else's patent - NPEs are immune to this because he who makes no products violates no patents.

NPEs/Trolls aren't the only problem with patents, of course - the whole concept is immoral and impossible to implement fairly. Microsoft, for example, gets a nice slice of Android sales via patent licenses (despite repeatedly failing to produce a mobile operating system that anybody actually wants to buy) and tried to smother Linux by claiming to have lots of patents covering Linux - without actually revealing what they were.

Provide patent trolls or companies a set period of time to productise their patents or they lose them. Problem solved.

What about research universities that create patents which they may license as a revenue stream for further research? Would licensing of a patent fall under the category of producing upon the patent?

Provide patent trolls or companies a set period of time to productise their patents or they lose them. Problem solved.

Just like the term "Patent Pending" where just because you have this mark doesn't mean it's a valid patent, and that after a specific number of days you lose the patent if you do not finish the process. Patent pending should mean the next step is actual production of the said product otherwise the patent pending mark gets dropped and is free for anyone else to pick it back up.

The other thing that really needs to happen: that district in East Texas, where all these things seem to get filed (because they take a _much_ more favorable view of patent trolls)? They seriously need to be shut down, and investigated to see if there's any impropriety taking place. At a minimum, take away their ability to handle this kind of case for the next 17 years. It can't be just a coincidence that ALL the patent trolls love this particular court.

They like EDTX because (1) it's fast, the judges know the patent law very well there, (2) the dockets aren't pushed back as there is not much crime there, so civil cases are not put on the back burner as much, (3) the juries in that area tend to have a very USA-is-the-greatest mentality, and thus really love hearing stories of American inventors being harmed by the big bad Asian manufacturing companies and they want to correct that harm, and (4) the judges tend not to dismiss the cases early and thus let them go to trial.

(1) and (2) are a good thing for everyone. It saves on legal fees for all parties involved. (3) is a good for plaintiffs, but there isn't really anything constitutional you can do about it, you can't screen juries for this. (4) is good for both parties, may be better for plaintiffs, but can be good for aggressive will-not-settle-for-anything defendants as well.

That said, all statistical analysis says that for those cases that make it through the end of trial, the outcomes in EDTX are not significantly different than any other district.
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we should just pick a time, like 16 years, and then after than the patent is not longer valid (hint, they expire after 16 years).

Utility patents expire 20 years after filing date, provided the periodic maintenance fees are paid on time.
Design patents expire 15 years after issuance date, provided the periodic maintenance fees are paid on time.

I'm so happy this headline says patent trolls.