> None of these companies have, to my knowledge, ever used these patents against individuals in the open source community but they sure do love to wield them with each other...
There have been many, many cases of patent trolls doing exactly that. The reason this is relevant to these companies is that patent trolls can buy these patents from a company and then make their money's worth by suing every Tom, Dick and Harry they want. Sure, $CompanyX might not actually be the one suing, but they are enabling this sort of abuse of an already broken system.
There have been many, many cases of patent trolls doing exactly that. The reason this is relevant to these companies is that patent trolls can buy these patents from a company and then make their money's worth by suing every Tom, Dick and Harry they want. Sure, $CompanyX might not actually be the one suing, but they are enabling this sort of abuse of an already broken system.