Signs are mixed, though he doesn’t like bully tactics. 

Since the morning of last Nov. 9, people from virtually every industry have been asking questions, seeking insights and wondering what a Trump Administration will mean not only for the country, but for their specific interests.

The tech industry as a whole was not big on the idea of a Trump presidency. But he had one very vocal supporter from the tech community: German-American entrepreneur, billionaire venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. About a week before the presidential election, Thiel made a speech to the National Press Club in which he defended his support for Trump as a presidential candidate: “It’s not a lack of judgment that leads Americans to vote for Trump; we’re voting for Trump because we judge the leadership of our country to have failed.”

Thiel had also made a speech supporting Trump at the Republican National Convention. His position within the administration has further solidified with the Nov. 11 announcement that Thiel will be joining the Trump transition team. Being perhaps the only Silicon Valley voice within the Trump camp, Thiel’s views could well affect how Trump considers matters of innovation policy—including patent reform, which has simmered on Capitol Hill for much of the last decade.

Printed Record is Murky

There is little in the printed record that allows us to parse Thiel’s views on patents. In September 2014, The Wall Street Journal published an excerpt from “Zero to One,” Thiel’s book on business startups, which makes one mention of patents. It seems fair to conclude that, while Thiel doesn’t seem to be vocal about patents themselves, he could be open to listening to arguments for respecting the rights of patent owners.

“Creative monopolies aren’t just good for the rest of society; they’re powerful engines for making it better,” according to Thiel. Although he notes that it’s fair to question whether someone should receive a monopoly “simply for having been the first to think of something,” in the next breath he acknowledges that the type of monopoly afforded by a patent is not anathema to innovation: “Apple’s monopoly profits from designing, producing and marketing the iPhone were clearly the reward for creating greater abundance, not scarcity: Customers were happy to finally have the choice of paying high prices to get a smartphone that actually works.” The dynamic nature of Apple’s new monopoly on mobile devices was able to topple the old monopoly of desktop computing that was the rich province of Microsoft, IBM and others.

The use of the word “monopoly” to describe patents, or copyrights, is unfortunate. Although the Supreme Court has historically used the word “monopoly” or the term “limited monopoly,” and those who oppose the patent system have long sought to tie patents to monopolies, a patent does not and never will confer a monopoly right.

Unfortunately for patent owners, the ability to enforce patents has continually eroded over the past decade as it has become easier to challenge patents in administrative proceedings, the Supreme Court has continued to render more and more patents ineligible, damages have evaporated and an open hostility toward patent owners and innovators has taken root and has been destroying the patent system. At best, a patent provides the potential to collect monopoly profits. But that rarely happens because of market entrants, market leaders failing to continue to innovate, and paradigm shifting innovation that can instantly make current technologies outdated.

Just ask Kodak, which invented the digital camera and now owns virtually none of the market share. Kodak is not unique. Neither are disruptive technologies.

Hogan Case was Personal for Him

So Thiel’s description of a patent as monopoly is a gross oversimplification and shows a fundamental misunderstanding about patents. What is interesting, however, is that in his Wall Street Journal essay, “Competition is for Losers,” he seems to suggest that it is perfectly appropriate, if not desirable or even necessary, for companies to identify a space where they can obtain a competitive advantage and exploit that advantage to the greatest extent possible. Thus, to the extent that he considers patents a monopoly this may not be troubling in the same way that so many others who have used the pejorative term have meant it to be in the past.

There might be other conclusions to draw on how Thiel could be persuaded to view patent-related issues based on his legal activities, specifically his bankrolling of Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against the online news site Gawker. The case was a deeply personal cause for Thiel, who had personal information revealed by Gawker against his wishes. Much like in his support of Presidentelect Trump, Thiel took a highly principled stand, regardless of how those principles were viewed. In a New York Times DealBook article published in May, Thiel indicated that he was taking a moral stand on Gawker’s activities and was not simply looking for revenge. He acknowledged that others, not just Hulk Hogan and himself, had been victimized by Gawker’s successful model of “getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest.”

Although Thiel’s grievance with Gawker is personal and deals with privacy, it is hard not to notice in his comments the sounds of someone who is tired of bully tactics. Whether that would trickle down to innovators who are vilified and mocked as “patent trolls” remains to be seen. Lumping all patent owners into one group and calling everyone a “patent troll” is simply not helpful, a conclusion recently reached by the Federal Trade Commission. Thiel could very likely be dubious of the “patent troll” debate, but exactly where will he stand on it? How nuanced will his view of patents be?

As Trump’s top insider from the tech world, Thiel makes for a somewhat encouraging, albeit enigmatic figure for small players in the patent universe. By and large, the jury is still out on how he’ll affect the Trump Administration’s stance on patents. But it seems reasonable to assume that Thiel’s views, while potentially favorable to some patent owners, could be quite unfavorable to others