[overbroad]

I think there may be some merit to this. The assumption of the patent troll may be that you will not look at their patents. (They are junk, remember?) They may just assume you will believe you need to hire a patent attorney and that the patents cannot even be assessed with so much as a sniff test without first spending thousands of dollars. And the cost will scare you into submission.

If you were to call the troll's bluff and go the distance (rare), eventually your patent litigator that you are paying through the nose is going to be challenging every possible claim in discussions with the troll's lawyers before anyone steps foot in a courtroom. Chances of success in court are going to be considered, and argued. The simple fact is the troll's chances might not be so great. Why do so many cases settle? The troll only needs to scare you into settling, and that's all. Mission accomplished.

I'd say the sooner you start asking those questions about the troll's chances, the more pressure you put on the troll. They have to pay their lawyers, by asking them to devote time to the matter, to deal with the questions in order to maintain fear in you. Meanwhile, in asking these questions you haven't had to pay any lawyers to look at the patents yet. (And they don't necessarily know that.)

The whole patent trolling system is built on fear and the high expense of patent litigation. Even for the most bogus patent claims, it can cost thousands of dollars to have a court declare them as such. Take away that expense, and the fear of having to pay it, and the trolling business goes "Pfft."