If you invent something that by itself has no commercial value whatsoever, but could make someone else's idea either viable or more profitable (maybe it makes t

If you invent something that by itself has no commercial value whatsoever, but could make someone else's idea either viable or more profitable (maybe it makes their widget easier to build?), then you're basically saying that your invention isn't patentable, even though by licensing it you could enable another company to benefit from your work while being compensated for it. Wow, that was a long sentence. Anyway, that's the whole point behind patents in the first place. It's to allow the inventor to be able to stand up to a big company and negotiate on at least somewhat equal footing, and finding an agreeable set of licensing terms. Then you could be an inventor instead of a builder, and come up with ideas that others can use to build stuff. You're suggesting that there should not be any such thing as an inventor who doesn't build stuff, because you're proposing that such individuals are invariably shot in the back. "If your sole source of revenue is licensing the patents that you've created, you're a patent troll." False. An inventor's sole source of income might well be licensing patents -- such a person is making a living by inventing things. Hence the term "inventor" ;)) A patent troll is someone who abuses that aspect of the system, like IBM. They try to make their patents as broad as possible, and then use them to prevent other companies from making progress, rather than making the licensing process into a collaboration between entities -- allowing the inventor to create the shoulders atop which the builders stand.