Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Your points are well taken.

I agree that litigation costs drive settlements in these suits. One question that arises is how to effectively litigate against non-practicing entities with deep pockets. Such NPEs are more difficult to negotiate with because their risk tolerances may not appear rational to the defendant(s).

Doug

I sometimes work on small disputes — i.e., disputes where the patents are valuable, but not valuable enough to merit the cost of a full jury trial. In such cases, you need rational attorneys on both sides to reach a reasonable settlement. The alternative, costly litigation, can be damaging to both plaintiff and defendant.

There are many rational bases in litigation for asserting patents against multiple defendants. Sometimes it is done as a part of a forum shopping strategy. Other times it is done in order to put two defendants together who have different motivations on claim construction.

On the subject of re-distribution of wealth, the idea of the patent system is to redistribute monetary capital to people who are rich in intellectual capital and willing to take risks, and to protect investment in new technologies when the second mover in a market has an advantage on cost because it is not spending on fundamental research and development.