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It's only required for trademarks. Copyrights and patents don't require defending every case to maintain ownership.

Perversely it might actually be a good thing if you did have to for patents as it would force trolls into the open early on (ie before their claims run into the millions).

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This is only partially true. You are 'strongly encouraged' to enforce your patent violations, for after a period of years (6) they basically become unenforceable. This is to prevent things like 'patent bombs'.

In practice it doesn't always work this way ( see patent trolls ) but it can be a BIG issue for people looking to enforce their patents.

Here's an interesting example:

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2010/05/26/estoppel-time-bomb/id=1...

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