It’s one of your classic movie plots. Good guys fight bad guys, only to find out that bad guys are misunderstood, thus a compromise is made, fighting stops and now, no more enemies. So it would seem to be taking place in the federal court rooms of East Texas and other parts of the United States.

Could it be that the so called “patent trolls” that have been portrayed as abusers of our legal system for profit are, in reality, simply misunderstood patent holders with rights?

The rising unethical practice of purchasing unmanufactured patent rights in order to sue companies with manufactured products that have the possibility of infringing on the patent has made its enemies throughout the last number of years.

And as the practice is understood, it is justifiably so. But are these “trolls” really doing anything different than your average patent holder? The very creation of the concept of patent holding is to ensure the protection of intellectual property or ideas of invention.

When a patent holders “property” is being produced without their permission, they have the right to be compensated for the infringed use of their idea. This means that the accused patent trolls are practicing the same rights as any patent holder when they pursue anybody who has produced a product or service that infringes upon their patent.

So, technically they are under the same labeling as your average patent holder. Where they vary from the rest is in the area of morally or ethics of why they do it. The pure concept of the labeling a company a ”patent troll” is based on the aggressive pursuit and use of patents solely for litigation without any motivation to manufacture the product, which stunts innovation.

So, our beloved patent trolls not misunderstood, they are bad through and through.