Last month, I wrote about the central dynamic of non-practicing entity (NPE) patent suits and how this type of litigation isn't really designed to determine right or wrong or to remedy legal misconduct. The goal of NPE litigations is simply to generate a transfer of value from the alleged user of an asset to the purported owner of that asset.

In other words, NPE litigations can be viewed as more akin to financial transactions than true disputes over distinct legal issues. And the most effective way to reduce the $11 billion annual cost of those transactions is to get them out of the courtroom and transition them into the business marketplace.

We take this approach at RPX and it demonstrably reduces the risks of NPE assertion. Companies in our network have already avoided or been dismissed from more than 1,500 litigations and avoided more than $1 billion dollars of legal costs. To succeed on a steadily larger scale, this kind of approach will require more participants and, especially, more transparency.