Price Waterhouse Cooper has compiled a study of the costs of non-performing entities in patents (otherwise known as trolls) link here

No surprises: the trolls make more from suing than performing entities (manufacturers) do from suing (shorter time to trial, higher success rate, higher damages).

More evidence of a sick system. And the trolls have learned how (jury trial) and where (Eastern Virginia and Eastern Texas federal district courts).

I am not sure on how to fit this in, but it is a further example of how the patent system is a "sick system". I just stumbled across this article in the New York Times: A Lasting Gift to Medicine That Wasn't Really a Gift. This article concerns how some in the medical profession are patenting "stuff" taken from patients, in some cases without the patient's permission. The concluding paragraph of Denise Grady's article is: "The notion of "tissue rights" has inspired a new category of activists. The question that comes up repeatedly is, if scientists or companies can commercialize a patient's cells or tissues, doesn't that patient, as provider of the raw material, deserve a say about it and maybe a share of any profits that result? Fewer people these days may be willing to take no for an answer."

What is troubling is this story points to how we (society) continue to generate new "rights". First, the doctors (for the lack of a better term) are stealing from the patient by claiming the patients "property" as their own property. Second, what is being patented ("tissues") should not even be eligible for being patented. So, similar to the trolls, some researchers are attempting to lock knowledge behind a "pay-wall".

NPEs, or so-called patent trolls, are merely the natural, and perhaps inevitable, result of our current patent system. Can anyone really blame them for obtaining valuable assets and then figuring out how to profit from those assets? The truth is that they're actually the envy of many CEOs. Many in the anti-troll crowd -- i.e., multi-national corporations -- seem to be angriest about the fact that, due to the trolls' aggressive patent enforcement tactics, the big businesses can no longer get away with infringing for free.