Keep it up
This is the way to fix software patents - by making them completely irrelevant. Get everyone to sign a "we won't sue you" deal and just move on.
Kudos for the first step. Can't wait to see what the next step is.
Google is looking to recruit 50 startups to participate in its patent licensing network. The Mountain View ad giant said its Patent Starter Program would offer startups free Google Patents as well as the ability to view Google's entire portfolio with the option of acquiring further patents. In exchange, the startups will be …
The whole point of being a patent troll is that you own patents and can extort companies who use them (or are worried that an East Texas jury will think use) with zero worries about your target coming back at you with patents you use - since you make no products.
It doesn't matter if you are using a company that has 100 patents or a company that is part of a network that contains 100,000 patents. The only "protection" offered here is if someone else in the network goes belly up and their patents get in the hands of a troll they can't use those particular patents to troll you. Unfortunately there's a near endless supply of patents for trolls to get their hands on, so it is like going to the store and buying up all the bullets, hoping that means I can't shoot you but ignoring the fact there's a store the next town over, and the next one after that...
The protection against trolls works in two ways: firstly, the pool will be able to act for any member that is challenged (think of Microsoft's dubious cases about FAT); secondly, over time the patents of companies that join will not become available to trolls for future abuse because they're already cross-licensed.
Microsoft isn't a patent troll, not by the true definition, because they make products. Therefore having patents of your own is protection against them.
Having patents of your own is useless against a patent troll - a company that owns patents, employs only lawyers, and produces no products.
Microsoft isn't a patent troll, not by the true definition
What is the true definition? I'd define a patent troll as anyone attempting to use patents to prevent innovation, which is the opposite of what they're supposed to be for. Unisys' waving of the LZW patent falls into this category along with Microsoft's always out-of-court settlements about FAT and Apple's "rubber band" patent.
While Unisys trying to make a money grab for use of GIFs was stupid, how did that "prevent innovation"? If anything it caused innovation, because it directly led to the creation of the PNG format, and motivated web developers to move to JPEG more quickly than they otherwise would have.
In fact that's the case with your Apple example too. Apple didn't patent all ways of letting people know they'd reach the end of the scrollable range, but only the one way they used. There are many other possible ways, like flashing the screen, making a sound, animating the edge of the page scrunching up and so forth. Your Microsoft example is more problematic, since the only reason anyone ever wanted to use FAT with long names was for compatibility with Microsoft's products. That's really more of a situation created by their desktop monopoly than a patent issue, IMHO.