Google Says 'Asymmetric Warfare' Against 'Trolls' Costs $30 Billion A Year (GOOG)

Google -- along with Blackberry and other tech companies -- has asked the FTC to pay greater attention to patent trolls, who embroil companies in expensive litigation over bogus claims on the ownership of new technologies. Patent trolls, or "patent assertion entities," cost U.S. companies $30 billion a year in "direct costs" for fighting off legal challenges from companies that don't make anything but simply want to be paid to stop suing, Google wrote on its public policy blog. Their latest tact...