What are the alternatives for fighting NPE assertions?
The two most common defenses are patent pools and aggressive patent buying by individual companies. Defensive pools traditionally are cumbersome to manage and slow to implement. They also only provide selective access to the protective patents in the pool. Patent purchasing programs provide some relief, but no company has the resources to cost-effectively evaluate and purchase all of the potential patents in their industry that might fall into the hands of NPEs. The economic and human resources needed could easily cost as much or more than defending a single assertion. In most cases RPX recommends that members employ a suite of tactics: join RPX; belong to a defensive pool, and maintain your own buying program.
