Patent Trolls are companies that take out patents without commercializing or promoting the idea. Instead they use the patents to sue existing companies that may be implementing an idea that resembles their patent. They seek out payoffs from companies and because the legal system is so costly, the legal defense is usually far more expensive. The patent system is so poorly organized that this “patent extortion” is able to occur repeatedly.

These patents they carry are vague and could apply to numerous activities. It’s like getting a patent for a machine that electronically stores data, and then suing IBM for a piece of every computer they ever sold. The most recent targets of these trolls have been online casinos. Bodog had to give up its domain recently, and rumors say that this patent might be applied against virtually any gaming site that allows people to download the game and play.