Is the University of Wisconsin-Madison a patent troll?

The question is not as strange as it might seem. “Patent trolls” are entities that own patents that they use not to further innovation or manufacture a product but to conduct a kind of legal extortion racket. Holding patents that are sometimes absurdly vague, they send “demand letters” to the thousands of companies that use, for instance, bar scanners — to cite a legendary example — accusing them of patent infringement.

Many companies pay a fee to avoid litigation, but others decide to stand and fight. Sometimes they win; sometimes they lose. In either case, patent trolling is sand in the engine of commerce.

Now consider the University of Wisconsin-Madison, or more precisely, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), which owns the university’s patents. Whenever the university’s scientists come up with innovations — which they rarely intend to use to manufacture a product — WARF applies for a patent and then seeks to license it, just as trolls do.

In higher education circles, WARF is known as a fierce defender of its patent portfolio. Just like the trolls, it does not back away when it believes companies have infringed on its patents, and it will litigate those claims if need be.