I was in the middle of one of these 20 years ago. Even then it can drain the life blood , in my case my retirement savings and my job, just getting involved. Make a very long story short:

Inventor A comes to my company. Has a narrow patent . We agree to license it and pay a minimum royalty while we develop it and a gross royalty on sales. All is good.
Then Inventor B steps up with a Patent troll with a very Broad Patent that suggests they invented the entire category. The whole situation screams for a declaratory judgement to invalidate the board claim Patent when I see the prior art.

We get quotes. $70-$100G and a “maybe” on the results. Too Much. We meet with the other side. It was fruitless. At first we agreed in principle on a patent pool with a sharing of the royalties or a cross licensing program so they could “sell” their invention to other manufacturers.

Inventor A approaches me after the meeting just steaming that we didn’t have the money to spend on the attorneys to invalidate and tells me that if they get one penny more than he gets, no deal. At that point, I had to trashcan it. The company I worked with was taking all the risk while these guys were fighting over all the profits.

End result, a third company company came in and using NEC engineers got around all of the patents. In addition they had money. 100s of millions. So all three went back to their respective corners. Twenty years later , long after the patents have expired and everyone is old with the testosterone gone. No one can say they made any money on it of any consequence although they are still trying.

We had generated a tremendous interest in the product via preview marketing. That blew the credibility when we failed to deliver. It was a no win situation.

Anything involving a patent fight , means a $1000/hour and someone with the means to fight. I can only guess how many inventions never saw the light of day because of these trolls. I made a vow never to get involved in a IP fight again. Anyone with a patent believes it is there God Given right to a gazillion dollars and F anyone else. That’s what opposing patent attorneys want. No binary decision making. All emotion.

The best way to deal with this for those interested in reform is a court administered test before any proceedings. The patent troll must have a commitment to develop the product. If they have never developed a product or set-up a reasonable licensing program, the suit should be summarily dismissed with orders to the patent office to re-examine the patent. If the patent is dismissed the plaintiff must pay all court costs and a significant fine.

The idea that a BS patent has to go through a series of expensive courtroom proceedings to be re-examined and depositions required to garner the intentions of the troll will keep exponentially expanding this until it materially moves the needle on GDP. Then the politicians will get involved and say we must save the Troll Industry. It’s a important part of the economy.

That’s one way. There are other situations, but court ordered testing of the plaintiffs intentions regarding their IP, should be required. That may stop these before they get started and take the profit out of the troll business.