[Spivak]

If patents had a requirement that they must be licensed under "reasonable" terms (i.e. if brought to court you can argue that the license was designed to price out or discourage competitors) then I'm totally in support of them since it's supposed to be a reward for sharing your design with the world rather than keeping it a trade secret.

[freejazz]

Well, let's say you don't successfully negotiate over licensing terms and the other side continues anyway. When you sue, you will not be awarded damages more than what a reasonable royalty would be. Here, treble damages for willful infringement act as a pressure for actors to accept fair licensing terms. So the point being: you can't really use your patent to force unfair licensing terms because in the end a court will never give you more than a reasonable license would result in.