> In fact bogus patents help established companies even more, because the trolls at least have to defend those patents in court at times, a small new player who is threatened by a large established one over some bogus patent can't afford to defend themselves.

At one point when Microsoft was still in the phone business, I recall an article pointing out that Microsoft made more money off android in a single year (unspecified patents in a patent deal with google[1]) than they made out of their own mobile OS in its entire lifespan.

[1] My memory may be inaccurate, but I seem to recall that they did the patent shakedown without ever specifying exactly which patents android were infringing. There was a lot of speculation that it was the FAT patents, butu I don't recall ever seeing it being disclosed.