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Comment by m3kw9 | Hacker News Reader

Is this the legal equivalent of setting mines and not marking them?

Keep in mind it's the big companies here that set out these mines:

    https://patents.google.com/patent/US8019332B2/en application filed by LG Electronics Inc
    https://patents.google.com/patent/US8385284B2/en application filed by Panasonic Corp
    https://patents.google.com/patent/US8411557B2/en application filed by Panasonic Corp
    https://patents.google.com/patent/US9001774B2/en application filed by Samsung Electronics Co

How a patent troll ended up with them, I don't know. But you can bet the only reason none of these big corps didn't use them against Apple or other big corporations is mutually assured destruction. They would not hesitate against a small company that's perceived as threatening which doesn't have a patent arsenal to fight back.

Could it be some kind of proxy warfare? Others mentioned agreements that require companies working on a standard to license their patents, so it would make sense to move them to a "patent troll" company that isn't bound by these agreements and can go after the competition without fear for reprisal.

Some economics textbooks that cover the topic of mutually assured destruction make analogies between nukes and patent stockpiles.

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