Update: I’d like Facebook to explain the dynamics by which this clause actually deters “patent trolls”

Raúl Kripalani
Aug 23, 2017 · 2 min read


Facebook asserts that the ultimate reason behind the strong retaliation clause is to deter patent trolls — or ‘meritless patent litigation’, as they call it.

What is a patent troll?

Patent trolls are also called Non-Practicing Entities, Patent Assertion Entities or Patent Holding Companies. Wikipedia states the following:

Patent troll is a categorical or pejorative term applied to person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent’s actual value or contribution to the prior art,[1] often through hardball legal tactics […]. Patent trolls often do not manufacture products or supply services based upon the patents in question.

How does this license it stop them?

Normally, a patent troll is an opportunistic company whole sole raison d’êtreis to hoard patents in order to assert them at a later stage, under dubious circumstances and practice.

They do not normally engage in the IT business. If they did, they probably wouldn’t be a patent troll: it would be a legitimate/meritful patent dispute, I believe.

So… why would such a dubious, passive & non-practising company be using React, Jest, Flow, Immutable.js, etc. to begin with?

Something doesn’t add up — at least for me (a developer…)


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Raúl Kripalani

Written by

🎈 Engineer @ Protocol Labs, working on libp2p. Previously: ConsenSys, Red Hat, FuseSource, Atos, freelance. From Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.

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