@Oh Jesus
Surely, one of the main questions really *is* what he has actually attempted to do with 'his' ideas since patenting them.
If he's done nothing for a long period after filing, that's would seem to be either because:
a) he couldn't think of anything to do with 'his invention'
b) his description so broad that it doesn't actually lead to any specific invention
c) despite having the idea first, he somehow misses the boat and gives up because someone is already copying his great novel ideas in a way he can't compete with
In cases a or b, it doesn't seem like he should have been given a patent in the first place.
In case a, if the invention isn't actually useful at or near the time of filing, it seems like someone trying to claim rights over speculative ideas.
Even if the idea is actually novel and non-obvious at the time of filing, a serious extra issue should be how obvious it would have been to a practitioner of the craft at the time the idea actually became useful (ie would it have been likely to have been found by someone anyway in the course of normal events)
In case c, even if his idea is actually novel enough not to be 'obvious to one skilled in the art', if he doesn't actually bother to do anything for ages despite an obvious infringement, that seems to be going pretty much against the spirit of patents.
If he thinks someone is infringing, he should let them know sooner rather than later, and assuming he can defend his patent, should then come to some kind of licensing deal, before the success of the idea is known.
If someone files a load of very broad patents about fairly obvious concepts, it could be extraordinarily hard (ie expensive) for anyone else to reliably find patents they might possibly be infringing with their own own novel ideas, let alone work out if they really are infringing a defensible patent, so they can't really be blamed for going ahead and implementing their ideas, particularly so if the 'ideas' are ones which would be relatively obvious to any number of people faced with the relevant problems.
The slacker the patent system, and hence the greater the number of patents, the more it seems to be incumbent on a holder to actually take steps to contact infringers in a timely manner, or lose some or all of their rights.
That's not just a matter of being fair to possible infringers, but also a matter of maximising the fairness of potential court cases - the earlier a patent defence is attempted, the easier it seems to be to work out exactly what the state of the art really was at the time of filing.
At the very least, the more delayed an attempt to sue, the greater the onus should be on the patent holder to demonstrate that their idea really was novel and non-obvious at the time they filed for a patent.
Heck, even in (US/UK) property law, if someone occupies land for long enough without the owner doing anything, they end up gaining rights to it, possibly based on the idea that if the owner cares so little that they can't be bothered to do anything, they don't deserve to keep exclusive rights to it.
And that's for something that demonstrably physically exists where initial ownership was undisputed, not just for arguable claims of exclusive ownership of potentially broad ideas which may or may not have actually been novel and non-obvious at the time that claims were made.
Paul Allen's patent madness not worth single penny
