is coming from non-practicing entities (NPEs) – also called patent trolls – which acquire patents for the sole purpose of licensing and asserting their patent rights. In fact, NPE litigation grew from 2.6 percent of filed cases in 2000 to 16.6 percent of filed cases in 2007. And unlike product companies, known as operating companies in the IP commerce world, NPEs are not susceptible to counter-assertion by their licensing targets because they do not make or sell any products or services.
