Summary: The study on the cost of patent trolls is getting a lot of attention in the mainstream

The other day we mentioned the newer Bessen study. Groklaw reposted the full text of his paper, after it had received permission and the subject was brought up in the Against Monopoly Web site.

Later it made it into CNN (not a blog), which can hopefully increase awareness of the problem. To quote:

Patent trolls -- companies that license patents but do not actually sell anything -- have long been looked on with fiery scorn in Silicon Valley. This week, a Boston University study offered fresh fuel for those flames.

Lawsuits from non-practicing entities, or NPEs -- better known as patent trolls -- have cost innovators $500 billion in lost wealth from 1990 through 2010, the BU study found. The study arrived at that figure by observing patent defendants' stock prices following a lawsuit, excluding general market trends and random stock movements.

We all owe a warn thank-you to Bessen and his colleagues, who are providing scholarly ammunition to those who seek to reform the patent system and remove multi-trillion taxes on everything we buy (those taxes go towards the super-rich, not scientists). ⬆