CBS On Trolls

CBS Evening News looks at the patent troll issue:

Professor Wu says, "patent trolls aren't evil or bad in themselves. They are just taking advantage of a system that is broken."

Indeed. From a game-theoretic perspective, patent trolls are not unethical but rather "rational," optimizing their strategy based on the legal rules of the game and on other players actions. Under such a perspective, it is not the players' fault, but rather a failing in the rules which allows parties to act in ways that are detrimental to the game, but advantageous to them individually.

No matter how you look at it, Wu is right about the system: it is broken.