Patent Trolls and their Excesses : Blackbird Tech v. Cloudflare

Patent trolls have been around for at least two decades, especially in the US. Their business model is well-known. They acquire patents in the market without any intention to work the underlying invention by producing and/or selling products. They then approach other firms which are merely suspected of using the invention with threats of patent infringement suits and demands for (often high) royalties. Their behaviour has been widely (and rightly) criticised and labeled as abusive if not even ‘extortionist’.This chapter expands on this phenomenon by highlighting a recent US case, i.e. Blackbird v Cloudflare, started by a boutique law firm which is known for taking lawsuits against more than 50 different defendants in a single year. This dispute epitomises the excesses of a legal regime which allows such actions in the first place. This is so even though the dispute in question ended with the troll losing the case. This is not the point, however. Many other defendants either lose such lengthy and expensive cases, or more often prefer to settle by accepting to pay significant fees. Such high costs that producers of patented technology face because of trolls’ aggressive enforcement strategies do have an overall negative impact on the innovation ecosystem, regardless of the outcome of the dispute