Apple and Google join forces to ask the Supreme Court to stop patent trolls

Apple Inc and Google Inc, saying they’re tired of being slapped with frivolous patent suits that cost millions of dollars in legal fees, are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to let them hit back. The technology companies are leading a group of firms urging the court to make it easier to collect attorneys’ fees from patent-holders who lose infringement suits. In two cases to be argued this month, the justices for the first time will consider the rules that govern fee awards in patent litigation. For Apple and Google, change can’t come soon enough. Each has been sued more than 190 times in the past five years by “patent-assertion entities,” companies that get most of their revenue from patent licensing and enforcement, according to the research firm PatentFreedom. For every case that reaches court, Apple says, it gets dozens of letters demanding royalties.