AS we have pointed out before, many patent trolls are run by lawyers, who are sometimes hiding behind a mask of secrecy. The father of patent trolling, Ray Niro, is himself a patent lawyer. According to a good report from Joe Mullin (longtime trolls expert), Jay Mac Rust is the man behind one of today's most notorious trolls [1], not to be confused with today's biggest patent troll, which is closely tied to Microsoft. Watch the photo of that smug man dressed up as a cowboy.
MPHJ Technology Investments quickly became one of the best-known "patent trolls" of all time by sending out thousands of letters to small businesses—16,465 of them, we now know—saying that if the business did not pay a licensing fee of $1,000 or more per worker, it would be sued for patent infringement. MPHJ claimed to have patents that cover any networked "scan-to-email" function.
The company that pushed an "online shopping cart" patent into the courts—and successfully made tens of millions of dollars off it—has finally been stopped.