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Is the only difference that they aren't actively buying up and hoarding other patents not filed in house? Because what you described is SOP for patent trolls.
It boils down to how broadly they interpret infringements. Not whether they did the R&D themselves (I.E. not buying companies for their patents)
Be careful not to assign a “patent troll” label to everyone defending their patent portfolio. Where do you mark the line?
I'm a software engineer. Most things should not be patentable.
Look and feel? No. Basic architecture? No. Given the same set of problems, engineers are very likely to come up with similar solutions.
I once designed an extremely complicated framework for TV apps. My boss at one point was impressed because he sat in on a "lecture" I was giving to a new teammate describing the architecture and why the complexity was needed. My boss got eager and asked if it was something we could patent. I said no.
About a year later, a coworker sent me an article from Netflix describing an extremely similar solution to what I had devised, from around the same time.
Same problem, pursued completely independently, with very similar solutions.
I believe that anti theft laws are sufficient for protecting proprietary algorithms/protocols, which does need to be protected. But ideas shouldn't be patentable.
I.E., gestures to navigate? No. Bezzles on smart screens? No. Backwards engineering your 5G protocol to be used with unapproved devices? Should be protected, but I don't think patents should be the vehicle. Backwards engineering your own 5G protocol that's very similar? Ehhhh debatable
Mechanical Engineer - hard disagree. Spending four years of iteration and design to make a final product with no protection would be ridiculous.
All someone has to do to copy a part is buy it and start making it. Which means all the money and time spent making the new widget is wasted.
Look and feel and basic architecture are respectively not eligible for utility patent or likely to be found obvious/directed to ineligible subject matter.
You must have forgotten about all those lawsuits around patent infringement on smart phone / tablet form factors. Things as trivial as black bezels around smart phone screens.
I specified utility patents. The smartphone wars covered a huge gamut of different types of IP, including both utility and design patents. If something is purely ornamental in nature (and new), it can get a design patent. There's quite a bit more nuance to it than that, tbf, but I'm on my mobile trying to gtfo bed in the morning so don't really want to dive into a doctrinal lesson on patents.