Intel joins troll-blocking club

Intel is diving into a patent pool in hopes of avoiding future troll attacks. The chip maker has signed on with RPX, a patent aggregation startup whose members pay steep annual fees to help shield themselves from royalty demands and litigation costs of patent trolls. Palm and four small software security firms also signed on …

[Sean Bailey]

erm..

So the non creating company buys up patents from other non creating companies...

This is to stop non creating companies charging licence fees to those who do make stuff...

Then they charge fees so that they don't have to pay fees to other companies, I'm reading this right yes?

[Robin]

re: erm..

You beat me to it (by several hours).

"I, the supertroll(tm) shall protect you all from these dirty trolls!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Members pay annual fees ranging from $35,000 to $4.9m,

"Ok, buddy, it's simple, you want to use this patent, you pay us for protection and you don't get sued. Capice...?

[John Tserkezis]

Great..

So either get screwed by a Troll, or get screwed by a different Troll.

(Shrug) At least we have a choice now.

[Mike Flugennock]

"Nice Army base you've got 'ere, Colonel...

...shame if anything were to 'appen to it...

...we can guarantee that not a single armored division will get done over for five hundred quid!"

[Secretgeek]

" Intellectual Ventures"

"Intellectual Vultures" maybe more appropriate?

But then I suppose no side in this, including the, possibly patent infringing, manufacturers, look good. In fact at first glance it seems that the only person to lose in this deal is the inventor of the patent itself.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ermm .... II

What happens when a non-member breaches one of the patents ?

This seems like an attempt to monopolize a shoddy business practise rather than preventing it.

[TeeCee]

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

"The firm acquires patents and provides the rights to its clients.". For money.

So it's a patent troll with a slightly different business model then? Presumably anyone not stumping up the protection moolah will be pushed to tell the difference between RPX and an old skool patent troll though.

[Bilgepipe]

Erm 3

What happens if the troll doesn't want to sell up?