Unfuckingbelievable indeed. He needs to fire his lawyer.
He can say whatever he wants to ease his conscience, if it walks like a troll...
I hesitantly accept the story as presented by these two business partners. But do I think it's "Un-fucking-believable" that someone would come to the opposite conclusion? Absolutely not. I do think it's puzzling that he doesn't realize that the ONLY thing we have to go on is his word and the word of somebody heavily incentivized to not badmouth him, and that this puts everyone else in a position of extreme uncertainty. That attitude smacks of "it's not trolling when I do it" and does slightly reduce the credibility of the claim. But only slightly -- I stand by my p=70% estimate that they're genuine and I can understand the frustration of having people assume the opposite.
What's the problem here? Spend your efforts writing to your members of parliament or donating to anti-patent organisations.
Edit: Here we go[1]. So a patent holder can lose their ability to collect damages if they notify an infringer of their infringement but then fail to take action against that particular infringer within a certain period. There's no damage to the patent merely because of selective (or absence of) enforcement.
[1] http://www.lawabel.com/patent-damages-laches-and-equitable-e...
- You collect a super small licensing fee from one entity and are attempting to extract a super large settlement from another.
- You (provably in court) know that Apple is infringing, but only decide to pursue action against Microsoft. This could affect, for example, you damage claims (i.e. your claims that MS owes you 'back dated' licensing fees).
> An anonymous individual is spreading accusations that I’m a patent troll.