> Except you have to do both - if you ignore the racket you are much more exposed to lawsuits

Check this out: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/06/defensive-patent-licen...

Google and Facebook are playing as well: https://code.facebook.com/posts/1639473982937255/updating-ou..., https://www.google.com/patents/licensing/dpl/non-sticky/

It should be mentioned that both of the above corporations grant this patent license for use and modification of the software they have open sourced.