[equity]

Couldn't you just ignore the lawsuit? Presumably they are after big bucks, and it is a pain and huge cost to continue with legal proceedings. And you are probably one of a thousand threats they send out. They are in-business too and don't want to waste their time on cases that don't pan out. Do you really think they will actually take you to court? I suspect they may just drop it if you ignore it, unless you are a big name startup with deep pockets. For the patent trolls, this is just a numbers game. If you send out a lot, a certain percentage will settle... Note: I am not a lawyer and this does not constitute legal advice.

[brazzy]

For the troll, legal is their business, and the costs much lower because the ARE the lawyers. And they will not easily back off because that news would spread and suddenly everyone would ignore them, which would make their business much harder. It's not the same as frauds that send out tens of thousands of fake invoices for $50 in the hope that many will pay out of laziness and without spending time on research. Patent troll "license fees" are too high for that.

[equity]

Although trolls are lawyers, there is still a "cost", and in this cost is time and the opportunity cost of spending time elsewhere. Going to court, getting a judgement and collecting fees is a huge time sink. Patent trolls are not dumb. They will litigate when you are a big fish.

[brazzy]

Or when they want to keep the threat of litigation credible in order to extort out-of-court settlements.

[lusr]

Could one then attack their standing as a lawyer, i.e. pursue seeing them disbarred?

[brazzy]

Lawyers are disbarred either for violating their professional duties or for committing felonies.

I don't see how that would work. A patent troll's actions are generally perfectly legal; they're exploiting structural weaknesses in the patent system (low cost of getting a patent) and legal system (high cost of defending against a patent lawsuit).

[dllthomas]

In principle, their professional duties could in some way preclude trolling. In practice, we'd have to get a bunch of lawyers to agree to pass on a crapton of money. But still, it may or may not be easier than getting politicians to pass on a crapton of donations to get the laws themselves changed...