First, let me apologize for typing in English.  I am just too slow in Chinese typing.  I will try to use more Chinese typing in the future.

Patent litigation used to be a term that is somewhat foreign and distant to most people.  In recent years, however, it has unfornuately become a household term -- thanks to the proliferation of "non-practicing entities" ("NPE") or infamously referred to as "patent trolls."  NPEs may sue anyone for patent infringement, not just big companies.  In fact, smaller companies or individuals are sometimes better targets because most "smaller" defendants (meaning those with less financial resources) can be easily forced into paying money for peace (by way of settlement in an amount less than the cost of litigation), even though they know the lawsuits have no merit.  It is simply too expensive to engage in patent litigation (in California, the current average cost for a patent litigation through trial is around US$ 4 to 5 million). NPEs can then use the settlement money to finance their other lawsuits against bigger companies.  NPEs are hurting the economy because the price of a product unnecessarily increased by the cost of defending patent litigation commenced by NPEs.  

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that software was patentable, software patents have grown exponentially.  In this digital/computer era, almost anything a person or company does with computers could potentially be subject to (software) patent infringement claims. In a case that I handled a few years ago, an NPE essentially claimed that any website that had an interactive content (such as embedding a video clip or an image in a webpage) infringed its patents.  Even though the NPE eventually lost (the patents were invalidated by a jury), the victory came at a very hefty price -- millions of dollars were spent in defending this lawsuit.  I have many similar war stories.  But I will not want to bore you with that for now :) 

The NPE issue is nothing new, and in fact, many companies have been lobbying for a law change to deal with patent litigation abuse for years.  President Obama and the Congress now finally take action trying to curb the abuse by NPEs (better late than never).  However, how much can they do?  It also remains an open issue as to how effective the measures (whatever they are) will be.  I grew up in Taiwan and now practice patent law in the U.S.  I have seen so much half-true information flowing around in Taiwan's media mostly because, I think, the reporters lack knowledge of U.S. patent law or just conveniently quote languages from other articles out of context.  This is dangerous, in my opinion.  If a statement is half-true, it often does more harm than a completely false statement because people tend to believe half-truth (as completely false statements can be easily dismissed) and use it as full-truth.  So here I am.  Hopefully I can provide complete information and assist businesses and individuals to make educated decisions if they, unfortunately, one day have to face the dreadful patent litigation issue.  I would like to use this blog to share the development of U.S. patent law and patent litigation to those who are interested.  Stay tuned!