Blessed is the journalist who can make patent law interesting, and Christopher Mims of the Wall Street Journal is just such a writer. In his latest column, Mims thinks through the litigious hoverboard industry. While the sudden popularity of this personal-transportation device may ultimately be as fleeting as that of any other trendy merch, the welter of lawsuits surrounding it are meaningful. Mims explains how our patent system isn’t likely to protect Shane Chen, who claims to have invented the technology, but may actually make is easier to crush him.

An excerpt:

The original in this case would be the Hovertrax, made by Inventist, in Camas, Wash., near Portland, Ore. Inventist founder Shane Chen claims he invented the hoverboard, and holds a patent, having first filed an application in 2012. After a brief dalliance with entrepreneur Mark Cuban, Inventist last month licensed the Hovertrax to Razor USA, maker of the eponymous scooter.

One reason for the deal, says Joalene Jolivette, head of sales at Inventist, is that Razor has more resources to sue the biggest importers of hoverboards from China. “Razor has spent over $1 million inside of a week dealing with cutting off some of the knockoffs into the states,” she says.

Neither Inventist nor Razor would say how many lawsuits that represents, but their legal action against the maker of IO Hawk hoverboards is public, and a lawyer for hoverboard company Swagway told me that company is being sued as well.

At this point it might sound like the patent system has done its job—to “allow someone to profit from inventions which are expensive to invent but easy to copy once made,” says Christina Mulligan, an assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School who specializes in Internet and intellectual-property law.

But it isn’t that simple.•