Refusing to pay the fee is certainly an option. I don't see it being very popular with people investing money in startups when they ask how the startup intends

Refusing to pay the fee is certainly an option. I don't see it being very popular with people investing money in startups when they ask how the startup intends to handle patent licensing and the reply is something like "Oh, we've decided we'll refuse to pay and hope no legal action is taken, or ship parts of our software from various countries where we think it's not covered."