What about the hypothetical scenario where Hasbro tells him to get lost, then rips off his design and produces the stuff anyway?
As far as I can tell, this scenario is very difficult to distinguish from a patent troll. The only real differentiator is whether or not the patent is actually a novel invention or whether it's just the "click a button on the internet" kind of crap that so many of these things end up being.
>...this scenario is very difficult to distinguish from a patent troll.
It's really not. This guy invented a physical product, got a patent, then licensed it (under contract) to a company to produce exclusively. This is a "valid" use of patents in the intended spirit and is a far cry from trolling.
Hasbro then renegued on the contract and tried to stiff the guy for royalties it had agreed to pay him. The lawsuits filed were not for patent infringement. They were for unpaid royalties and breach of contract.
>...Hasbro tells him to get lost, then rips off his design and produces the stuff anyway?
Well, that's what the courts are for, but it still doesn't make it trolling if he decides to go after them. I guess some people believe that no ideas should be protectable, in which case there shouldn't be a such thing as patents. In that case, anyone seeking a patent would be a de facto troll. But, that's a separate argument. Given that patents do exist, trolling describes a distinct set of behaviors apart from an original inventor seeking to protect his invention.
Don't most patent trolls purchase or license the patents they are suing with as opposed to actually filing them? That seems like a pretty big distinction.
If you rely on that, then you've made it fairly easy for a big company to steamroll over a legitimate small inventor, since they won't have the resources to compete with your legal team, and they can't sell the patent to someone who does have the resources since that person would then be labeled a troll.
Exactly this. This is really the way patents were intended to be used. I think the patent trolls have turned the word "patent" into a dirty word.
But, they have a legitimate role in protecting ideas and thereby incentivizing innovation for inventors/actual creators. It's when trolls go off buying patents in order to charge a toll and/or threaten actual producers that it becomes a form of extortion and gets out of whack.
As far as I can tell, this scenario is very difficult to distinguish from a patent troll. The only real differentiator is whether or not the patent is actually a novel invention or whether it's just the "click a button on the internet" kind of crap that so many of these things end up being.