Introduction to the 2015 Chapman Law Review Symposium by Professor Samuel F. Ernst

There are few areas of patent law more contentious than the dispute over the social utility of “non-practicing entities,” or (if you will excuse the expression) “patent trolls.” Generally speaking, patent trolls are companies that acquire patents, not for the purpose of developing new technologies and creating jobs, but for the sole purpose of demanding royalties (through litigation if necessary) from those companies that do release products on the market. The 2015 Chapman Law Review Symposium will seek to advance the discussion of non-practicing entities in three ways: (1) by expanding on the scholarly debate surrounding patent trolls; (2) by expanding on the perspectives informing this debate beyond academia by inviting the views of practitioners from both sides of the patent troll divide; and (3) by expanding on the scope of this topic by considering the nature and possibility of copyright and trademark trolls. View the entire introduction .

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