Patent trolls never had any risk to themselves in the first place. I don't see how this empowers them.

It just leaves them as clearly the only enemy left, with massive corporate lobbies against them, and widespread public distaste weighing them down.

The current situation is mixed---companies aren't fully in favour of patents, but support the status quo.

> This would only neutralize patents of actual companies that have something to create.

Against each other only, right? They could still use their patents against patent trolls.

Yes, but which patent troll actually uses anything that you can prove violates their patents? They’re basically immune.

I mean, look at Samsung v Apple and Oracle v Google...it's not all trolls in the litigation game.

See my remark about impossible audits. Patent trolls are almost definitely relying on FOSS whether they're in the business of creating software or not.

If I were a patent troll, I would get a Windows computer with a slightly old version of Microsoft Office and nothing else on it.

Even if the entire FOSS community decided to adopt a patent termination clause right now, it cannot retroactively apply to whatever fragments of FOSS code that has found its way into proprietary products so far. So I'm safe as long I don't install any new software until I'm done trollin'.

Your idea would make sense If all the FOSS that was ever written came with a patent termination clause. But that's not the world we live in.