Study: Startups lose $21 billion due to patent trolls

According to a new study by a professor at theÂ MIT Sloan School of Business, patent trolls cost startups $21.772 billion in lost venture capital funding over the past five years.

Still from the trailer for 1990's Troll 2. — Still from the trailer for 1990’s Troll 2.

The study specifically focuses on actual patent trolls — companies that file 20 or more patent lawsuits — not on companies that that just occasionally sue to defend their patents.

According to paper authorÂ Catherine Tucker, higher quality patents — such as those that would get approved in Japan or the European Union — are associated with a lower level of litigation.Â

So one solution to the problem is to stop awarding junk patents for dubious or obvious “inventions.” Another solution, she suggests, is to make it more expensive to file a patent infringement lawsuit.

Read the full paper here.

Read the Ars Technica interview with theÂ author here.

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Maria Korolov

Hypergrid Business editor and publisher Maria Korolovis a science fiction novelist who, at her day job, covers artificial intelligence, extended reality and cybersecurity as a freelance technology journalist. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter here or on Facebook, or LinkedIn. Email her at [email protected]. Her first virtual world novella, Krim Times, made the Amazon best-seller list in its category. Her second novella, The Lost King of Krim, is out now. She is also the publisher of MetaStellar, a new online magazine of speculative fiction.