Nathan Myhrvold has certainly made a brilliant business out of patents laws. They simply think of the "ideas" and patent them without having any need to actually implement any of the stuff (there are few things that they do prototype to show off to journalists and avoid getting flagged as clearly a troll). Then they go to all big businesses and ask them to become "subscriber" for their patent pool in order not to get sued in future. The beauty of the business model is not about filling patent law suits for billions of dollars like all other trolls but instead offer a subscription for few million dollars that generates a continuous revenue stream. In essence, they make companies pay annual dues just because they are sitting around and thinking about something!
Patents have become like pixels. Collect enough of them and you can draw a picture of any technology imaginable.