Patent troll Acacia takes one in the kisser

While much of the industry lives in fear of a patent troll rearing its ugly head, Cognex has decided to take on trolls like Lemelson and Acacia, and has been spanking them on a regular basis.

As PJ at Groklaw notes, it's far too early to throw up our hands in despair at the dreaded patent trolls:

Imagine if [Cognex] had, instead, thrown up his hands, assumed there was no hope, said the patent system was a joke, the system totally corrupt, etc. and just paid for a license he knew, and as he later proved, he didn't need? Nobody needs it now. It's history. Thank you, Cognex. Cynics give up too easily, methinks.

Amen. What a great day it would be if everyone who believed themselves unfairly sued for patent infringement fought back. Imagine what would happen if companies like Microsoft were forced to back up their words about patent infringement, and then lost in court.

Eventually, the courts would clear out the riffraff. What a great day that would be.

[cogvoid]

I wonder some times if just calling every inventor and entrprenuer a patent troll is appropriate. Being able to patent new ideas I believe is a the heart of innovotion in a free market. This is why patents can be filed and challenged in court. I dont think that cognex should be applauded everytime they go to court. Just google "patetents" and "cognex" and see what gets returned. It has gotten to the point where it is not possible to compete in some markets simply because a company invests in lawyers. Using lawyer to control a particular market has become a prevelant business strategy. I believe cognex is the flip side of patent trolls and like many other tech companies have replaced inovation with a team of lawyers. Try to get ahold of the cognex patent portfolio and tell me if inovation in image processing should just stop there.