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I love this idea, and think it's the winning move.

A problem I see is in the details, where I wouldn't want to lose X million dollars just to force a dialogue. If I were the entire decision-making branch of Amazon, I would only dedicate X million dollars to something guaranteed to produce change, like deploying numerous robots (or whatever).

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The other caveat is that, although a number of bigger companies have gotten on board the anti-troll train lately (particular props to Newegg and Rackspace), the most popular of services from the largest of companies already have substantial legal teams. They run a higher risk (e.g. Amazon losing sales) for a problem they have already "solved" for themselves, albeit with an equally-expensive solution of a legal team.

Hey let's not give Amazon a free pass here (as a company that has merely solved the problem for itself with an expensive legal team). Amazon was at the forefront of frivolous patents with things like its "one click shopping" patent.

No reform is possible as long as industry leaders like Amazon and Apple not only don't push for reform, but actively embrace the status quo. To laypeople, Congresspeople included, the opposition of small companies like Newegg and Rackspace is indistinguishable from noise. They look to the market leaders for guidance on the direction legislation pertaining to the industry should go.

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