Patent Trolls: Make Them Pay

Basically, your company pays a % of revenues to be part of their patent protection scheme. They get to license your patents, which they allow other members to use. They purchase patents outright as well (though haven't been able to compete with bids from Apple, Google, Microsoft and the like).

From their website: "Our pioneering approach combines principal capital, deep patent expertise, and client contributions to generate enhanced patent buying power to manage patent risks and ongoing costs. By acquiring potential problem patents, we significantly reduce patent assertions directed at our client network. We will never assert or litigate the patents in our portfolio."

This doesn't solve the problem of large companies litigating frivolous patent claims, though it does fight against patent trolls.

Presumably there are legitimate innovators who will not be as quick at execution as incumbent competitors. They may leverage themselves highly in order to try to scale up production, and afterwards will have scarce resources to hire legal representation.

Depending how open and shut the case looks, representation may take them on as clients anyway. This act would marginally decrease the likelihood that they would, whether it decreases it too little or too much is a legitimate concern.

Other industries than software are far more capital intensive. For instance most new drugs are not developed at the same companies that are the best at synthesizing compounds at scale and have the best distribution networks. However, investors assume the risk of funding expensive research, specifically because they know that in the rare case that it is successful, the large companies will buy the property rather than simply make it themselves.

The SHIELD Act could very well create a different model where all drug research had to take place under the umbrella of larger corporations that could fund expensive legal fights on short notice.

There is an overwhelming presumption that intellectual property is a sham in the software industry. Perhaps, software patents (and patents of business practices) generally slow progress more than they reward innovation. However, I don't understand how skepticism about the role of intellectual property protections has turned into uncritical acceptance that it only causes harm.

Also, in order to be accepted you can't be a pure IP business. You have to actually have products in the market. In other words, a real business.

Lots of details to work out mostly by legal minds.

Again, not a lawyer here, but I would imagine there are ways to cause trolls lots of financial and legal pain given enough money.