Aside from the mythology involved, one way to look at the troll situation is that you have 'bad patent trolls,' on the one hand, and 'bad patent thieves,' on the other.

They're referred to in the industry as patent trolls.

I think patent trolls are abusing the system.

The cause of the lawsuit is not that we are patent trolls. The cause of the lawsuit is that these defendants used our patented technology to make over $1.5 billion in revenue.

What is a patent troll? According to some, a patent troll is a firm who licenses patents they do not themselves commercialize. Yet, many of the large firms who are most critical of the practice do it themselves.

A good critic is trying to tell you what she has learned about herself from the reading of a particular piece of literature. A bad reviewer is often trying to tell you how smart he is by declaring whether or not he liked a particular book. If he liked the book, then this is the kind of book a superior person likes, and vice versa. He might try to explain why he didn’t like it, but the review is really just a tautology. “I didn’t like this book because it is bad,” is equivalent to “This book is bad because I didn’t like it.