You know, when I first learned about patents back when I was more vertically challenged, I thought it was a cool idea that could be used to give credit to the ideas used in a product. Perhaps your friend invents a new bicycle chain mechanism and you pay him for the license to use it in your bike design that you hope to sell to your friends at school who are too lazy to walk (pitch line: “Now you can sit on your bum and actually go somewhere this time!).
All you have to do it list his patent number in your “Licenses Used” section and according to your agreement you either pay him a cut of your sales per bike or a lump sum at the beginning of development of the bike. Ideas, especially original ones are expensive and hard to come by these days (ask EA to see how they keep on adding more and more sequels to the COD series). But what happens when people patent the mere implementation of things that aren’t really tangible? License for patent trolling, that’s what.
