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No, not really. If they developed they technology and are trying to license it, and suing people that don't license it... That is not a troll. That is someone who is doing exactly what patents were meant to do... Patents we're meant to encourage people to invent.

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You are confusing patents with copyright. Patents were meant to encourage people to disclose. It was taken for granted that people will invent things regardless of patent protection - they will just keep their inventions trade secrets.

Depends on the industry; there are plenty of places where trade secrets aren't viable (e.g. medicinal chemistry, where it's trivial to reverse engineer a drug).

Maybe so, but nevertheless patents were not "meant to encourage people to invest".

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