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Technology might be one of the messiest arenas when it comes to patent ownership. Historically, companies and groups labeled “patent trolls” exhibit predatory behavior by regularly grabbing patents they don’t necessarily plan on using for their own products, and then bringing others to court to collect fees for licensing their patents. This practice has become more aggressive, and troubling in the legal world, namely because patent trolls are running smaller businesses into the ground, which lack corporations’ deep pockets. As a result, start-ups often cannot afford court proceedings and thus, pay to license the patent that the bigger company keeps in its storehouse. Google announced Monday that it is launching a patent purchasing program as an experiment to “simplify” the patent marketplace and to potentially lessen the power of the patent troll.
The project is dubbed the Patent Purchase Promotion, and in a blog post, the company’s Deputy General Counsel for Patents, Allen Lo, wrote that part of the program’s goal is to make it easier for smaller companies looking to sell patents:
Unfortunately, the usual patent marketplace can sometimes be challenging, especially for smaller participants who sometimes end up working with patent trolls. Then bad things happen, like lawsuits, lots of wasted effort, and generally bad karma. Rarely does this provide any meaningful benefit to the original patent owner…So today we’re announcing the Patent Purchase Promotion as an experiment to remove friction from the patent market.
The search giant will open a window from May 8 through May 22, 2015, during which patent holders may submit patents they are willing to sell for a named price. Lo writes that Google will let the submitters know whether it is interested in buying their patents by June 26.
However, this effort — acknowledged by Google as an experiment — is unlikely to have a huge effect on the state of the patent troll in the U.S. and the pattern of subsequent predatory behavior. That said, Google’s initiative does bring the trolling problem into focus — a potentially positive result that could encourage urge state and federal legislation that protects smaller companies facing giant patent-based legal battles. But it is hard to ignore the fact that Google will benefit hugely from this program. After all, the company has been embroiled in a few patent battles of its own with other tech giants. The Patent Purchase Promotion will enable Google to bid for patents on its own terms before they are gobbled up by patent trolls, all while looking like the good guy. The real test will be to see how the smaller patent owners benefit from this program.
