Deals
Patent Privateers Sail the Legal Waters Against Apple, Google
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To harry other nations without attacking them, monarchs like England’s Elizabeth I commissioned ship captains to plunder merchant vessels, creating a type of pirate known as a privateer.
The term is used today to describe businesses that obtain patents from technology companies and then file infringement lawsuits against the sellers’ competitors. Tech companies use privateers to distract their adversaries or collect royalties on the patents without provoking retaliatory litigation, said Ron Laurie, managing director of Inflexion Point Strategy LLC in Palo Alto, California.