Oracle Forced to Throw Out 98% of Patent Infringement Claims

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You make it sound a little like a curse to be owning a patent. LOL I don't think inventors and non-inventors would like this. There is a certain stigma attached to being called into a court to prove yourself. Moreover, the inventor would have to spend good money to hire lawyers to fight the big-shot available-in-office-closet lawyers at the Googles and Apples and Microsofts. However, sure, that is a good idea, if someone is sitting on a patent and doing nothing with it.

It would be better if the inventor is required to tell USPTO when and with whom he is actively pursuing deals with to put his patented idea to use. The courts can reject or accept cases from those buyers based on that information to see if the inventor is sitting on the egg instead of making an omelette or a chick. Less load on the courts. No load on USPTO. Less burden and pressure from the judiciary on the inventor, but onus remains on the inventor to put in the effort to make his invention useful to the world.

My view is that handling these cases in court is much less error prone, where as government agencies tend to make lots of errors which are difficult to fix (the fun times a few relatives have had with SSI). It gives the patent holder a chance to defend themselves by presenting evidence that they are actively pursuing options.

Perhaps the patent office can record activity reported by holders to be used as a basis for accepting and rejecting these cases. If there is not sufficient recorded activity on a patent, then the owner can be called into court to defend themselves.

I don't mean that the system should be aggressive. Say for example, a patent holder is called into court and they can show a few instances where they talked with investors or businesses in the past year, that would be sufficient for me. When I say "active", I don't mean there has to be a great deal of activity.

Not all "activity" should be acceptable though. Like I said earlier, the patent holder can repeatedly refuse to license or ask for ridiculous royalties. In this case, the plaintiff can use this as evidence against the defendant to argue that they have no real intention to make use of the patent.