Usually they're called NPEs, non practicing entities and differentiated because their use of patents is to use them to extract tolls rather than to build things

Usually they're called NPEs, non practicing entities and differentiated because their use of patents is to use them to extract tolls rather than to build things. Which isn't to say that established players don't also use them to create moats around technology of interest, or that the nature of certain patents doesn't lend them to abuse. They could, for example, require that the thing which makes the patent 'novel' also be 'patentable subject matter' for example, rather than letting one patent some novel software running on a non-novel computer and meet the standard one piece at a time. Also I wasn't aware that Tolkien or his estate had any patents. Copyrights, surely, but patents? That's surprise me.