Posts Tagged: "Jeff John Roberts"

Fortune’s misguided screed on patent trolls misrepresents patent owner Blackbird Technologies

Fortune tech writer Jeff John Roberts, who penned this particular article, regurgitates Cloudflare’s claims that Blackbird “may be engaging in illegal fee-splitting arrangements with patent owners” simply because it is run by people who have experience as patent litigators. It’s true that Blackbird is staffed with many lawyers coming from leading firms in patent law like Fish & Richardson and Kirkland & Ellis, but Blackbird is asserting the patents on their own behalf. Although the patent owner gets a share of the revenues from patent assertion, there is nothing unethical about the arrangement. Because Blackbird is not a law firm and does not receive fees, there are no fees to split. But don’t tell that to the editorial staff at Fortune. They apparently don’t want something like fact to get in the way of a fake, juicy patent troll narrative that makes patent owners look like villains.