Like anglers fishing with dynamite, most non-practicing entities, a.k.a. patent trolls, would prefer to target as many defendants as possible in individual patent infringement suits. Multi-defendant cases mean less expense for plaintiffs, and more settlement-inducing headaches for defendants.
That tactic is mostly history now, thanks to anti-joinder rules in the America Invents Act. But because the joinder provisions don’t apply retroactively, there’s still the pesky issue of what do about the flood of multi-defendant cases brought by NPEs just before the AIA became law last September. An East Texas patent fight between an NPE called Lodsys and a host of major IT players could help point the way, with major implications for both plaintiffs and defendants.
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