Largest "patent troll" in history was brainchild of and founded by former Microsoft CTO. The person who coined the term "patent troll" helped him start the company. He came from Intel. The saddest part of the idea of "trolling" as a "business" is that it has spread into other areas, outside IT. "Patent trolling" is easy to spot when the patents are software patents as so many software patent are low quality. However, the patent quality problem is not nearly as acute in other industries.

There are in fact legitimate small inventors who must approach large companies, and that situation predates the hardware and software industries, but it was software and hardware people that created this idea of the "patent troll". If there was a "bad" situation that existed before Intellectual Ventures was founded, no solution was offered by those who were negatively affected. Rather, the approach taken was "If you can't beat `em, join `em." One could argue, as a result, the situation went from bad to worse.

People take enough cheap shots at adtech folks, when they offer their perspective.

I assume the patent troll approach would be that they're returning value to their investors, while following the law as it stands.

It happens. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26759051

Well, they come in different shapes and tunes: without talking hackers or espionage, you also have “investors” kindly asking for details of your software. In fact, in many fields (and mine, materials informatics), you can file a patent for the end product of your software (novel alloys, in my case) while keeping your code entirely private. How could they troll you then? Patents make their own industry as well.