[hadlock]

>Are these patent trolls doing anything that normal companies with patents that try to monetize them don't do?

The important distinction here, in my opinion, is that investors bought a dead company along with it's IP for the explicit purpose of suing companies as that was their profit motive.

Had there been an existing company that was actively building/selling routers, then yes they would have been using the patents as intended - to protect their business. In this case the company who owns the patents, was using them in a weaponized fashion.