These parasitic companies file bogus patents and then take legitimate companies to court in order to win cash—usually by settling out of court as firms don’t want protracted and expensive cases.

EFI in California, who create servers from the printing, graphics, wide-format and signage industries decided to take a stand against patent troll outfit Acacia in America. Last month, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit confirmed that a device profile patent asserted by a subsidiary of the non-practicing entity Acacia Research Corporation against EFI and 31 other companies was invalid.

The Federal Circuit's decision confirms what we have maintained from the outset: that the patent is invalid and that EFI and its partners should not have been sued in the first place”

The reason was quite simple: the patent’s terms were so vague it could be applied to almost anything to do with the industry as it was as the court says, "…a collection of intangible colour and spatial information…" and therefore not eligible for patenting. Previously the firm has filed a patent infringement suit in a California federal court in 2012 against EFI, through Digitech, a subsidiary of Acacia, but EFI appealed and finally the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's decision and crushed the patent troll’s claims.

Interestingly, although Digitech had previously extracted settlements from some companies before the district court's decision, EFI opposed Digitech's claims from the start as a warning to other trolls looking for easy money.

EFI’s lawyer Bryan Ko says: "The Federal Circuit's decision confirms what we have maintained from the outset: that the patent is invalid and that EFI and its partners should not have been sued in the first place.”

We will continue to fight these kinds of meritless lawsuits in as many courts as is necessary to protect ourselves, our partners and our customers”

"We will continue to fight these kinds of meritless lawsuits in as many courts as is necessary to protect ourselves, our partners and our customers. As we have said before, we will not be bullied into settling abusive lawsuits by patent trolls."

The unsavoury work of patent trolls is more prevalent in the USA where traditionally the courts use a rule that commands each party to pay their own legal bills whatever the outcome. In most European courts the loser usually picks up the tab. Since a troll may be taking several companies to court this could obviously end with a hefty bill.

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This video gives an insight into the world of patent trolls:
ENDS

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