The purpose of a patent is so that the original inventor can make money from his invention whilst not having to keep the actual invention a secret. Patents have a time limit (not sure what that is) in which the inventor gets to make his money before the invention is open to society.
Maybe we should ask to change the law to say that because of the nature of software and the rapid change of growth in emerging technologies, the length of time a software patent owner gets to generate money from his invention is limited to a much shorter length of time, say 1 or 2 years. This way, legitimate patent owners as per your example still have time to generate income and establish themselves as market leaders in whatever technology, but there is much less incentive for people to patent troll, since the patents aren't intrinsically worth as much.
Also, perhaps you shouldn't be allowed to sell patents on to other people. That seems completely against the spirit of the whole thing - I should only be allowed to license you my patented idea. If I sell you my patent, does that mean you came up with the idea, suddenly? Buying and selling patents is surely only for evil purposes...
Maybe we should ask to change the law to say that because of the nature of software and the rapid change of growth in emerging technologies, the length of time a software patent owner gets to generate money from his invention is limited to a much shorter length of time, say 1 or 2 years. This way, legitimate patent owners as per your example still have time to generate income and establish themselves as market leaders in whatever technology, but there is much less incentive for people to patent troll, since the patents aren't intrinsically worth as much.
Also, perhaps you shouldn't be allowed to sell patents on to other people. That seems completely against the spirit of the whole thing - I should only be allowed to license you my patented idea. If I sell you my patent, does that mean you came up with the idea, suddenly? Buying and selling patents is surely only for evil purposes...