Dana Rohrabacher: “We have certainly heard a lot about trolls, haven't we? Maybe we should understand exactly how that word came to be used…”

“We have certainly heard a lot about trolls, haven't we? Maybe we should understand exactly how that word came to be used in this debate. Top executives from one of the huge electronics mega-companies, these international corporations, were sitting around one day. One of them happened to tell me about the conversation they had, which is, How do we demonize the small inventor who is coming at us because we are infringing on his patents? How do we do that? We can't attack the small inventor because people know that is where the progress of the United States comes from, is our independent inventors. We can villainize the lawyers who represent those small inventors. They went around the room, and this executive tells me about this conversation: Well, what should we call them? What is a sinister, evil sound that can get away from the fact that we don't have our own arguments and our arguments against this don't stand up; that we are really attacking the little guy's ability to prevent us from stealing his patent? What word can we use that can get people so they won't see that? Let's call them ``trolls.'' Well, the guy who was talking to me, who was in the conversation, he was an executive from one of these multi-national corporations, he said, Well, I suggested patent pirates, but trolls sounded so much more sinister. That is what we hear today.…”