The curmudgeon should take a different approach to end of year recognition. How about an award for the loser of the year? My award goes to [drum roll] – the patent troll.
I understand a patent troll to be an individual or company (mostly made up of lawyers) who buy up patents and then use them to sue for financial gain. Patent trolls tend not to be the original developers of products and may secondarily collect patents for the purpose of resale.
While I am on the topic – I also object to “trivial” patents. My favorite example is the Apple “swipe to unlock“. I do see that my new phone uses a padlock image, but shows no pathway along which you must move the padlock. Trivial patent, trivial fix.
