> Apple, Amazon, Google, HP

I can understand why Nokia might have sued these companies because all of them make phones/hardware and there could even be legitimate patent infringements.

I am confused why they sued Reddit though. They don't make any hardware.

Patents don't have to relate to hardware or even any product. With software patents, you can get a patent for an idea, and now anyone else who comes up with that idea has to pay you money, despite never having seen or heard of your patent. Software patents are purely an extortion racket, they do not create new ideas or encourage innovation, they only place artificial restrictions. Nokia probably has some garbage patent like "put text on a screen," but dressed up in fancy language, so now they're suing whoever looks like they might have money.

Honestly, anyone who holds a software patent should be shunned from the industry.

I remember seeing online bill payments being patented. Whoever made that should be making a killing, and if they aren't ... everyone on the planet should be getting sued any day now.

> make phones/hardware and there could even be legitimate patent infringements

It might add some clarity here to point out that Nokia owns Bell Labs. Sadly, they can sue people over patent infringements that do not involve phones or hardware all day long.

Why would that matter? You don't need to make anything to get a patent.

> Why would that matter? You don't need to make anything to get a patent.

This touches on something I never understood about people's take on patent non-practicing entities (NPEs).

IMO the fundamental problem is that the patent system grants patents that are too broad, insufficiently innovative, and for too long of a duration.

But I never understood the complaint about patent assertions by parties that don't use the patents themselves. It strikes me as analogous to demanding that authors only get copyright on works that they self-publish.

Well, there aren't hundreds or thousands of authors writing autogenerated stories with as many names and plot elements as possible, then using anyone who uses the name "john" or a plot twist in their own creations.

In other words, the trolling issue is not occurring in book writing as it appears to in patenting.

Oh, and you do see people here criticizing the length of copyright protection in the US.

Copyright applies to the subjective holistic work as a whole, whereas patents are written for explicitly described elements. You don't copyright "John". Also, most generic aspects of art have prior as art from long before the USA was invented and any copyrights were granted. Technology changes far more quickly than art.

And when art is valuable, it does get copyright suits.

And copyright term is 10x as long as parent term.

The stated aim of copyright/patents in the US Constitution (Art 1, Sec 8) is:

"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"

It seems to me that sitting on a perfectly good patent and not using it is precisely the opposite effect of the stated aims of copyright/patents.

Yet this is the system we have. Would love to see the supposed "originalists" try to find a way to justify the current system with the language literally IN the constitution.

I'm sure this is covered thoroughly in legal studies, and IANAL. But here's my current take on it:

If we're going to let people sell patent rights in a free market, I'm guessing we need to let patent holders chose to not sell at a given price. Otherwise they have severely limited negotiating power.

I.e., suppose we did add a use-it-or-lose-it patent rule. Think of the ways that you, as a would be rights-purchaser, could exploit that.

Nokia sued Amazon (and HP) over video streaming. There are plenty of non-phone/non-hardware ones i didn't list.

Here's a diagram [1] I made several years ago (the date on the file is 2010 but it may be from even earlier) showing who was suing whom. The arrows are from plaintiffs to defendants. Nokia was the biggest source of outgoing arrows.

[1] https://imgur.com/a/0nn7e1e