Earlier quoted context omitted.
Patents are part of the game you have to play, like it or not. If you don't patent your inventions somebody else will and they will come after you with their lawyers. Patents are used defensively far more often than they are used offensively in these stupid "Intellectual Property" battles. Because of this, there is absolutely no point in shaming someone for patenting a thing, especially when they are apologetic about…
No, I don't buy it. If the patents are publicly and perpetually freely licensed except for defensive-only purposes, then sure, they're not unethical. Red Hat's patent promise ( https://www.redhat.com/en/about/patent-promise ) is one example. If patents were actually intended for defensive purposes only, then this would be an easy and uncontroversial thing to do. However, in practice this is vanishingly rare, and lawy…
Freely licensing your patents doesn't protect you against patent trolls. I wrote out how patent fights work in another comment, but here it is again.
Company A comes to Company B and says, "Hey! You are infringing on one of my patents!"
Company B says, "oh really? Well let me look through my collection of patents and see if you are infringing on any of mine."
Company A says, "oh, um, nevermind, I think I was mistaken."
Company B says, "yes, that's what I thought"
Now, imagine if Company B had already freely licensed all their patents. That defense wouldn't work.
I agree with you that it's a crappy system, but simply standing with your arms folded and saying, "I'm not playing," isn't going to work.