March 7, 2022 — Approximately 80% of patent threats come from trolls, according to Unified Patents, and troll litigation towards Open Source programs has reached an all-time high of 721 cases in 2021. The reason is simple. It’s profitable. Besides going after big businesses, patent trolls now go after small businesses that don’t have the resources to fight them back. It’s cheaper for them to pay Intellectual Property (IP) blackmail than to battle in court. Unified Patents — which OIN, Microsoft & the Linux Foundation collectively sponsor — bring the fight to the trolls. The group does this by examining troll patents and their activities in various technology sectors (Zones). The Unified Patents Open Source Software Zone (OSS Zone) is the newest of these Zones. Steven Vaughan-Nichols with ZD Net covers the story.