Idaho gets into the patent law business.

Idahoans (?) can sleep easier, now that Idaho Governor Butch Otter (not pictured above) has 

signed a bill into law that creates a state cause of action for patent trolling.  

There's a bunch of good stuff in there (and of course, by good, I mean "appalling").  But the thing that really caught my eye is this:  one of the conditions that makes a person a "target" of a troll and thus eligible to file suit under the new law if that person has been sued for patent infringement.  I can't wait to see how this plays out, the first time a defendant in a patent infringement case files a parallel state action seeking damages under the new law.

Idaho is not the only state that has created, or is working on creating, a similar cause of action.  Similar laws are already on the books, or working their way through the state legislature, in Tennesee, Kentucky, Virginia, Maine, Wisconsin, Oregon, Vermont, and New Hampshire. 

It's going to be a mess..