The purpose of patents is to suppress competition for one's own products. These patents don't protect any novel aspect of Apple's or Microsoft's products. By definition, if they're valid.
(Nitpick, but the purpose of patents is a lot more open ended than that -- "promote progress of useful arts etc." -- suppressing competition is just one of the means to that end.)
But what makes you say these patents don't cover aspects of Apple's and Microsoft's and the other shareholders' products? The patents involved in the Rockstar lawsuits cover networking, touch-screens and search. The shareholders make products which obviously infringed on these patents to varying extents, and that is why they paid billions for them.
Considering they've paid all that money to secure a "freedom to operate", so to speak, is it fair to them that everyone else gets to infringe with impunity?
As a little guy with a patent (team & I created a new & superior wireless audio technology - superior to BlueTooth Audio, Apple's Airplay & others) I'm with you!
We'd love to connect with some friendly people out west to help us, but not sure how to make that happen? It's not like we haven't tried - we spent a good deal of our savings to demo out in the Valley this past year.
Since we work full time jobs and are in our late 30s it seems harder then ever to find partners/those who can help. Though we will continue to work hard and further innovate with the goal/hopes in mind of finding help and or after a long road/fight be rewarded for our work.
