> By this principle, only a company that produces nothing could ever hope to sue the technology behemoths for patent breaching. True, there's a fair amount of

> By this principle, only a company that produces nothing could ever hope to sue the technology behemoths for patent breaching. True, there's a fair amount of hypocrisy. Patent trolls (NPEs) suck for everybody, but they especially suck for large corporations as large patent portfolios and cross-licensing agreements (actual and potential) mean they usually don't have to worry about an endless train of trivial patents posing an existential threat to every line of product development. The rise of patent trolls has meant that the pain of software patents is distributed more equitably. And, of course, theoretically this makes it easier for individuals and small companies to monetize patents. But patent trolls also pose a unique problem for smaller players because the ability of big companies to threaten small players is limited by laws and regulations that restrain anti-competitive behavior. Patent trolls almost by definition aren't subject to such restraints. Thus, while most large corporations lobby against patent trolls, it's not uncommon for them to sell to NPEs patents that they couldn't easily prosecute themselves. Patent trolls make it easier for everybody to monetize patents, but in practice it's the small players that arguably get the short end of the stick.