[droithomme]

I have to wonder when I keep hearing about these cases: if you have say a 50% chance of a favorable ruling on some absurd patent, and the upside is billions of dollars in shakedown payments, backed by the authority of the judicial system, how much would a disreputable company be willing to spend on the chance of getting such a ruling? How many other companies, seeing such rulings, would try to get their own? How many cases would they bring on the chance of getting the ruling? I ask somewhat rhetorically, but of course I'm suggesting by asking the answer is "a lot" and also suspecting that there do exist people that will prop up shell companies that bring case after case after case until they get rulings that enable them to legally blackmail others.