Patent trolls buy patents with the intent of licensing them to people who produce. In fact, they often as such spur on production. They sue only when a patent is infringed upon. It's not typically their goal to do so, their goal is to license.

Right, but now there is a toll on the bridge to producing that item. If the best items command the highest toll (license price), great ideas are now de-incentivized. The public good has not been served.

The need for a patent license prevents, delays, or slows the idea from being executed upon by adding a cost to it, and the execution is the valuable part.

I still don't think you understand. There's always a toll for any patent you didn't register. Patent licensing often lowers it. Buying a patent is often more expensive than renting, especially if the renting is non-exclusive. Patent trolls often buy the patent and license it out to multiple companies, creating competition and lowering the barrier to entry.

The best patents commanded a high price even before there were patent licensing businesses. In fact, now the amount you can make off of a great patent is higher because the demand is.

It's really only because they occasionally sue that people complain, but without lawsuits their business model wouldn't work.

Why would I start a business based around a patent when I have no guarantee the licensing fee won't be onerous?

There is always a toll--if there is a patent. Why would I pat someone on the back for licensing me something that was once free, until a BS patent was created and sold to an extortionist?

>> lowering the barrier to entry

I think the difference is that I am stepping outside of the current system to make my point, and you're saying patent trolls and licensing improve the current system. It seems clear to me fees in general are disincentives. I agree with you that a lower fee is a lower disincentive, but still more of a disincentive than no fee at all.

Individuals without defensive patent portfolios are at a severe disadvantage in the current environment.

Without the current sham system, there is no "toll for patents I didn't register." This is not to say that there should be no system--only that the system is broken and does not accomplish its aims effectively.

I think the innovations we've seen over the last 100 years of our current system would be proof that you're wrong. American inventors have made huge leaps and bounds in every area in which innovation is possible. I don't see how it's possible to look at the last century and say our patent system is anything but amazing.

There is no way to to look at America over the last hundred years without the patent system, or better yet, with a more functional system. So those innovations, while great, are not proof of anything.

I would contend the system did not start going off the rails until more recently, anyhow.