I can understand why Nokia might have sued these companies because all of them make phones/hardware and there could even be legitimate patent infringements.
I am confused why they sued Reddit though. They don't make any hardware.
Honestly, anyone who holds a software patent should be shunned from the industry.
It might add some clarity here to point out that Nokia owns Bell Labs. Sadly, they can sue people over patent infringements that do not involve phones or hardware all day long.
This touches on something I never understood about people's take on patent non-practicing entities (NPEs).
IMO the fundamental problem is that the patent system grants patents that are too broad, insufficiently innovative, and for too long of a duration.
But I never understood the complaint about patent assertions by parties that don't use the patents themselves. It strikes me as analogous to demanding that authors only get copyright on works that they self-publish.
In other words, the trolling issue is not occurring in book writing as it appears to in patenting.
Oh, and you do see people here criticizing the length of copyright protection in the US.
And when art is valuable, it does get copyright suits.
And copyright term is 10x as long as parent term.
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"
It seems to me that sitting on a perfectly good patent and not using it is precisely the opposite effect of the stated aims of copyright/patents.
Yet this is the system we have. Would love to see the supposed "originalists" try to find a way to justify the current system with the language literally IN the constitution.
If we're going to let people sell patent rights in a free market, I'm guessing we need to let patent holders chose to not sell at a given price. Otherwise they have severely limited negotiating power.
I.e., suppose we did add a use-it-or-lose-it patent rule. Think of the ways that you, as a would be rights-purchaser, could exploit that.