There isn't exact data and there will never be exact data, because many of the settlements extracted are confidential and there is no incentive for anyone to talk about them.
If someone is ambushing people in the street, hitting them over the head with a pipe, and robbing them, I don't need to see a double fucken' blind study to decide that this needs to stop.
You've reminded me of a meta-study published in some medical journal, analysing "parachute application to prevent trauma due to gravitational challenge", i.e. if it's worth wearing a parachute when jumping out of a plane. They found that little high-quality data exists to support parachute use, and recommended further study.
You don't need exact data, you just need enough. There's no doubt bad actors in the system, but do they characterize all of them?
The papers I read indicate that trolls actually often have "strong" patents, but like you said, most of those settle out of court, so you never hear about them. The ones that go to court are the weak ones, and those are the ones you hear about, which creates an image that all trolls assert bogus patents.
I mean even NewEgg, who've been spouting a lot of "We Never Settle" rhetoric admitted, in this very case, that they've licensed a majority of patents that were asserted against them. The coverage on Ars is a bit brief, but it sounds like out of 80 assertions NewEgg has taken it to court only a handful of times. To me, that sounds like the system is not imbalanced.
> If someone is ambushing people in the street, hitting them over the head with a pipe, and robbing them, I don't need to see a double fucken' blind study to decide that this needs to stop.
Or maybe the alleged victims claiming to be robbed are lying because they don't want to pay money owed to the alleged assailant and they're hoping he gets put away? Are you going to believe individual he-said/she-said cases or data?
> We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute.
If someone is ambushing people in the street, hitting them over the head with a pipe, and robbing them, I don't need to see a double fucken' blind study to decide that this needs to stop.
You've reminded me of a meta-study published in some medical journal, analysing "parachute application to prevent trauma due to gravitational challenge", i.e. if it's worth wearing a parachute when jumping out of a plane. They found that little high-quality data exists to support parachute use, and recommended further study.