Sentence:  According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these <WSD>creatures</WSD> [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A living being; an animal or  a human.