Patent Squatting

The practice of sitting on one's patents, suing infringers and collecting royalties rather than working them. May be difficult to distinguish from what a troll or non-practising entity does: the key difference is that patent squatter has obtained the patents through its own research efforts, and may just be taking a break from using them to make things, or specifically the things that the patents cover. Eastman Kodak was reported by Bloomberg Businessweek (28 March 2011) to be engaged in such a strategy, using the revenue from its considerable portfolio of digital imaging patents to replace what it used to earn from photographic processing.