I've just been running into this same issue actually and it's sooo frustrating. Especially with software patents that are so ridiculous. In my case, some idiot has a patent on basically using a database to look stuff up (just applied to one specific industry). It's actually an issued patent! Crazy!

Anyway, we had a brief consultation with a patent attorney and we think we can work around the patent in our case. But he said a thorough review of the patent and all the documentation could like run upwards of $10k, and any litigation would easily be $25k to start and most likely a whole lot more expensive.

Options are really-

(1) Find a way to work around the exact patent methodology and still accomplish your goal (2) License the patent (3) Do nothing and risk getting sued (4) Give up

Best of luck to you!