I hate to point it out, but history is littered with examples of cases where following the law and using non-violent diplomatic approaches failed, necessitating

I hate to point it out, but history is littered with examples of cases where following the law and using non-violent diplomatic approaches failed, necessitating the use of violence (in the eyes of those who felt they had no recourse). It's the very reason just about every nation has a military, for instance. In a nutshell, if you think beating someone up to get what you want is wrong, then you must necessarily think that military force is wrong, and maintaining a military force is also wrong. You can also look at some pretty extreme examples: if you're a Jew in 1930-something Germany or one of the nations it occupied, and a bunch of soldiers are coming to take you to the camps, is it unethical for you to use violence against them? Of course, you might argue that's a bad example because the other side already initiated the use of (or threat of; they're carrying guns) violence so you had the right of self-defense. But that's no different than having a legal system that you feel is unjust: if you don't agree with the legal system's ruling and resist or ignore it, then they'll send men with guns to force you into submission using violence. Now you can argue that there's a huge difference in magnitude between being taken to death camps and losing a patent case and having to give a large sum of money to a patent troll, but I think the principle is the same, it's just a difference in degree. All human conflict is like this: we have systems we try to use to avoid solving our differences with violence, but at times, these systems fail and at least one party feels the price/risk is worth it. Luckily, if you look at the entirety of human history, the amount of violence has been steadily falling, and we're probably at the least violent point in history, if you look at humanity as a whole.