Perhaps apple ABUSES patents (that's a different discussion I do not want to get into), but I prefer to reserve the term "patent troll" for those individuals or organizations that do not actually perform invention nor manufacture, sales and marketing of actual products.
That doesn't seem like a very useful distinction. Suppose new patent troll legislation comes along that would prevent enforcing a patent that isn't actively being used or developed (similar to trademarks). The trolls would just produce a cheap gizmo that depends on the patent in some way, and then blame the lack of sales on patent infringement. They'd colloquially still be called "trolls" based on a subjective judgment that they aren't really serious about selling the gizmo.
When someone calls Apple et al. a patent troll, I think it's from the perception that they 1) apply for overly broad or obvious patents, and 2) enforce the patents offensively. Also a very subjective definition, but it doesn't seem any worse than arbitrary "uses/plans to use" criteria.
That's a little bit too narrow. There are lots of companies out there that manufacture products but derive a large percentage of their revenue from patents. For example, the chips that Qualcomm makes have been described by some as a loss leader to hide and justify their very lucrative patent licensing business.
I use that term for companies judging from how useless the patent they are defending is. Like "slide to unlock", "rounded rectangles of the device" etc.
That is what I think. It's not a huge problem for Apple. It seems like to stay competitive in this market you have to play the troll's game and Apple has shown many times that it knows the game very well. In the end, it probably balances out. I'd like to see numbers on this.
The real issue is small players getting buried under legal fees.
