» Sat Aug 02, 2014 2:52 am For the uninitiated, patent trolls are people or organizations that endeavor to make lots of money by acquiring patents that they may or may not even be responsible for and then looking for other parties that they might be able to accuse of infringing on them. In my opinion, this is the business equivalent of buying something, leaving it on a sidewalk for others to find, waiting for someone to pick it up, and then accusing them of stealing it from you. That, but potentially making millions of dollars in the process by suing. It's a cancer on the free market and innovation.
I've posted here in the past about Newegg.com's anti-patent-troll activities:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushed-the-shopping-cart-patent-and-saved-online-retail/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/shopping-cart-patent-troll-tries-to-save-itself-gets-pounded-by-newegg/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/newegg-and-geico-stop-patent-troll-that-sued-dozens-over-forms-on-apps/
...and that's one of the reasons I still like to shop at Newegg.com. 
Interestingly, another has come out of the woodwork in this fight, and it's........Adam Carolla!?!?
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/podcasting-patent-troll-we-tried-to-drop-lawsuit-against-adam-carolla/
I've never been a huge fan of Adam Carolla, but I'm coming around. Long story short: a company (Personal Audio LLC) that was created specifically to acquire an "episodic content" patent and sue - well, everybody - went after Mr. Carolla. Carolla raised money from fans to defend himself, and then later Personal Audio LLC realized that Carolla wasn't really making money off of his podcast and tried to drop the suit. Instead of letting them drop the suit, Carolla essentially says, "nah, you guys are jerks, let's do this." Oops.
That made me smile. I know that he's at least somewhat doing this for the publicity, but I'm a svcker for stories about jerkwads getting their comeuppance. 
