Interesting info. Thanks for posting that.
What PAR35 said, Plus a couple of the Circuit Judges there are very plaintiff friendly. I once saw an analysis that claimed they ruled something like 90% on the plaintiffs’ sides for these non-practicing entities (NPE) that bought up unused patents and mined their overwrought claims to sue companies based on some really stretched claim buried in an earlier patented invention that often had little to do with what the company was really making, but could be misrepresented to a jury.
It’s one of the reasons patent attorneys will toss in everything including the kitchen sink when writing claims for even simple inventions.
It makes creating something and bringing it to market almost impossible these days. Even if you pay for an exhaustive patent search in the field of your new product, there’s no guarantee you won’t be sued out of existence by one of these NPEs claiming a patents they own for a left-handed Franistan, something entirely unrelated to your product, described your product in Claim 34 in its patent as a potential use for Franistans and you are infringing, and owe them all your profits and penalties for not licensing their patent. It may make no difference if your product fits in a pocket and their patent’s Franistans were designed for handling freight on supertankers, weigh ten tons and were never made— you still might be found to have infringed.