The amazing thing to me is the extent to which companies can't solve elementary coordination problems, and so stay in a Hobbesian state where entities just rand

The amazing thing to me is the extent to which companies can't solve elementary coordination problems, and so stay in a Hobbesian state where entities just randomly attack other entities with patent-clubs and there's nothing resembling law or police entities. Step one would be banding together, not just with a centralized defensive patent portfolio, but with a centralized legal defense fund. As for the NPEs, patent the business method of patent trolling (I think somebody already did this, so just keep applying until you get another patent for the same thing), then sue them for violating it. After they're convicted by the central court of patent trolling, of course. Astounding how the insight of law and centralized police, in just a slightly different domain, is so counterintuitive that companies still farm the lands as individuals, prey to whatever bandits stalk their way.