They are rich enough to sue. They are not "the little guy", they are often well funded businesses that buy patents wholesale for the sole purpose of suing other businesses.
At my last job I fielded a call from the "scanner patent" guys, luckily I knew what they were up to and I declined to answer any questions. They framed the call as being from Staples for a survey about the office equipment we may have bought from them, i.e. they flat out lied. Since I was in charge of all office and IT equipment purchase decisions, I knew we'd never bought a thing from Staples, and when they started specifically asking about multifunction printers with scanners, I just said "troll someone else" and hung up.
#1: Big corporations can push small guys out of business by tying up their products in patent disputes.
#2: Patent trolls can bleed corporations big and small while producing nothing of value.
These problems are specific to the patent industry.
Are there similar problems in other areas of the law? If so, we may be able to identify and try to solve the larger problem. If not, we just need to focus on patent reform which is an easier problem.
There is a form of patent trolling that only goes after small guys. But they'd avoid actually litigating the patent and just push a settlement. They'd never take it to trial because little guys can't pay out enough to justify the cost of a patent trial. That form is basically extortion. They ask for a small sum of money to just go away.
Outrageous.
Surprised there isn't a more meaningful response from Google.
These little guys have too much access to the legal system.
That's why it's hard to clamp down on. Nobody wants to make it so only big guys can have access to the legal system.