Unfortunately, by choosing to license instead of crushing them early, companies like Google, Apple, IBM, Cisco and Accenture and government bodies like the IRS provided funding for the troll to grow and thrive.
It's relatively easy to say "enough is enough". Actually fighting back is harder and, at this point, almost impossible.
> Unfortunately, by choosing to license instead of crushing them early, companies like Google, Apple, IBM, Cisco and Accenture and government bodies like the IRS provided funding for the troll to grow and thrive.
Reality is a bit more complex: none of those licensed from Lodsys, instead they have blanket licenses to all IP of Intellectual Ventures (the biggest patent troll in the world) as part of their initial investment in the company (a number of large, patent-warring company invested in IV, probably in the hope of weaponizing it down the road). And Abelow '078 was assigned to a (patent sub-troll) front company of IV (Ferrata Ethereal), therefore being accounted to as part of IV licensing. Which is why Apple, Google and Microsoft have licenses to Abelow '078.
Thanks for the clarification. In any case, Lodsys' site claims IBM, Cisco and Accenture to be clients. I assume those licensed directly from the troll.
I can not say for sure. According to a list of investors[0], Cisco is a licensing investor (same as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Intel and a bunch of others) but IBM and Accenture are not.
For the big companies, it's probably a lot more like paying off terrorists with hundreds of nuclear silos in hopes that they won't nuke you. The settlement they want is miniscule compared to the damage they can do to you.
Unfortunately, patent trolls don't really have anything to crush. They don't have products to countersue over, so at best you might manage to invalidate some of their patents, which won't stop them.
It's relatively easy to say "enough is enough". Actually fighting back is harder and, at this point, almost impossible.